Silent Hill: The Patient
by Phanax Leminer
Summary: It was supposed to be a simple assignment, but quickly turned into Hell. He has to find a way out, but the demons will never let him go. Without his comrades, will he make it out alive?
1. Arrived

Silent Hill: The Patient

Chapter 1:

Arrived

**Author's Note: This fan fiction timeline and location in the Fullmetal Alchemist's world, Amestris, could be difficult to readers who aren't familiar with Fullmetal Alchemist and Silent Hill universe. I suggest that you, yes you, go and watch ``Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood´´. Why? The fan fiction is based on this universe and not the other one. Also, this story will have sexual references and themes that MIGHT disturbed some reader. So your discretion is now advised. This is also a non-canon story and should not be taken seriously, plus it's impossible that most of what you'll read could never happen in the anime (hint: Silent Hill).**

**I hope you will enjoy this story and have a nice day.**

**Special thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the Beta-Reading  
><strong>

**=Phanax=**

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><p>It was his first solo assignment after a long period of time. He was a stranger in the North-Central of Amestris as the soldiers on the boat and the common folks would simply pass by, minding their own business and never giving a second glance to the man on the main deck next to the security fence. The cold breezes were usual in this part of the country and the stranger was already getting used to them. The boat was going up a deep and large river which the maps never displayed as if it was hidden a treasure from bandits or tomb raiders. To the river's side, tall firs and strong flaming colored deciduous trees were welcoming the arrivers after their short voyage. When the golden leaves moved in a calm music and finally let them go of the branch holding them since spring. It was a magnificent dance performed by nature itself, but it would not last for a long time.<p>

When the wind died, the stranger perused one more time the envelope in his hands with the letter still folded inside. The paper was high quality and the scarlet Army's seal was ripped in half by his own hands. He remembered the confusion he had when he first received the letter on that fateful morning ten days ago.

_It was a hot and sunny day with barely any clouds and an autumn breeze blowing away the leaves from some of Central's trees. The air was starting to get chilly in the town, giving the signal to the citizens of the incoming winter almost at their door._

_When he arrived at his bureau that morning, there was some sort of tension in the air. Everything around him felt alienated and bizarre. The floor was slight damped and his desk was paperless, which was already impossible. He walked to his desk, sat on chair behind it and watched the wooden doors before doing anything. He stared at the doors and tapped on the desk with his white gloved left index. He was waiting for someone and something, but they weren't arriving on time, maybe she was taking care of something before she could come in. His eyes glanced on his right and then, intentionally, focused on the black object before him. It has numbers, a handle to hold with one hand and it was brand new. The taps stopped as his eyes continued to stare at the object. It was a new phone replacing the old one due to a terrible incident that happened two weeks ago._

_He could remember the strange noises, the muffling sound of a person's palm on the other side and than the fateful silence. There was little he could have done for the dead man and even today he felt bitter and powerless. The only things he could have done were to see the crime scene without the body and to assist to his friend's funeral. Life robbed him of a good friend and his thoughts couldn't be any darker than the killer's fate once captured. _

_The door's handle moved and the wooden portal opened. He came back to reality and his face became light as he saw a blonde woman coming in._

_''Good morning, Lieutenant.'' he said with a half-smile._

_The blue uniformed woman saluted in the strange silence her superior with the only free hand she had. She walked to the desk and let a letter drop next to a smaller pile of papers and documents. The man glanced back at the woman and with a smile as he grabbed the letter. He observed it and its seal._

_''It's from the high up, Lieutenant?'' he asked still examining the red seal on its back._

_''Yes and it seemed urgent that you open it, Colonel. The lieutenant who gave it to me explained this letter is from the high court.'' she pointed out with an emotionless face._

_''So… Finally, I have a raise!'' he let out happily and almost childishly._

_The woman only let an eyebrow rise at the declaration of her superior and returned into her emotionless status. Almost like a ritual, the man broke the seal and delicately took out the letter. He only had to read the first lines and his facial expression completely changed. His right-hand immediately saw that drastic change and knew it was bad. The black eyes of the man scrolled from left to right, silently reading every word and weakly mumbling some of them. It took him twelve seconds sharp to finish the lecture and when he concluded he raised his eyes._

_''It had to get worse…'' he sighed to the woman as he tapped the letter with his other hand. ``Solo assignment.´´_

In the past, Roy had been in solo assignments, but after the Ishval war, they had diminished and he could recall a very few of them. They were time consumers, which back then weren't a problem, but now he needed all the seconds in the world. However, this time it would be different. It was given by the superiors and had the signature of one general whose the name didn't ring any bell to the colonel. He silently put away the envelope in his coat and his eyes came back to the river.

At that moment, he saw a change of weather. The boat slowly entered a thick fog. He found it reckless to enter such a dangerous weather phenomenon, but his nervous state was washed away when he saw the light of a lighthouse not so far away. The change was sudden, but less menacing if an accident would happened, he could still swim to the shore or take one of the three small lifeboats on the boat.

A high-pitch whistle got his attention. He focused on what lay ahead and could see the silhouettes of some small buildings and two warehouses.

''We are arriving at Silent Hill! To all passengers, please prepare yourself to disembark the boat in thirty minutes!''

The sailor repeated his message a second time and the colonel walked away from the top floor of the boat.

When they arrived, the colonel had only his suitcase with his gloves in and his usual military clothes on him. Since he was in an army protected region, he didn't felt the necessity to wear gloves.

An older man in the same familiar clothes saw him stepping out the small vessel and approached him. He saluted the disembarked man with an unceremonious hand sign.

''Welcome to Silent Hill, Colonel Mustang. General Manuel is waiting for you.''

The colonel only replied in the boring salute and silently followed the older soldier to meet this General Manuel.


	2. Manuel and Samuel

Chapter 2: Manuel and Samuel

"The corridor needs to be cleaned." It was the first sentence that came out of the colonel's mouth since he stepped in the military headquarters of Silent Hill. His words justified by the building interior; the daily-occupied corridors that the soldiers were passing through were dirty and the light coming out of the lanterns was dim. Even with the great number of windows in the walls, very little sunshine that forced its way from the fog could light the ambiance.

''Our apologies, Colonel. Unfortunately, we have got some pipes problems lately and the steam coming out is tearing apart the wallpaper. We tried to fixed it, but it seems the pipes are getting too old for their jobs, sir.''

The colonel made a remark to himself and simply replied, ''Take me to General Manuel, soldier.''

The lower ranked seemed surprised by the imposing voice of the colonel and silently obeyed the colonel while trying to not too angry at the prideful alchemist.

Silent Hill was nothing special, just like the other towns Roy visited before. It had a rather small population of citizens and soldiers, however they seemed to live in security and ease as the town's children played in the streets, workers on the docks were laughing on their breaks while eating the lunch prepared by their wives, and the women were shopping even with the fog blinding the shops' and restaurants' signs. It was a different life style with the fog surrounding the town, but nobody seemed bothered by the thick cloud on earth except of the colonel.

It didn't take long before the alchemist and his guide arrived at the general's bureau. When the old soldier was about to knock on the door, a voice rose out of the room and made Roy jump slightly as his guide only moved to the side as if he were expecting for someone to burst through the door, enraged.

''What do you mean by that? General Manuel, I will not stay silent for this atrocity! Have a nice day!''

The last sentence was followed by four distinct and strong hits on a wooden surface, probably a desk. As soon the voice finished, the door opened widely, almost hitting Roy's nose, and then a blonde woman stormed out the room. She walked away without even giving a glance or an apology to the colonel or the old soldier who she had almost smashed with the swinging weapon. When she was out of sight, the colonel only shrugged as the soldier told the arrival of the man to the general.

''Colonel Mustang, General Manuel is ready to see you, but before could you give me your suitcase? We are going to put it in one of the guest rooms upstairs and don't worry about the filth; it's clean.''

The colonel gave a small smile and gave the suitcase to the soldier who hid a hateful stare from the alchemist.

The first thing that struck the man in the general's bureau was the smell. It had the stench of hundreds of smoked cigarettes. He resisted the urge to make a grimace. He learned in the past to never show disapproval of a general's habit or to give them advice on their attitude; he had to hold his tongue and endure the cheap smell. Other than the stench, the rest of the place had the basic standards of a general's bureau: a lot of papers and numerous documents invading the desk, trophies, family pictures on the walls, bookcases full of books and dictionaries, a desk, an old-model black telephone and a sealed window behind the general's chair. No wonder the place had no fresh air to speak of. The colonel was used to the smell of cigars and the worst kind of cigarettes, but this was ridiculous! The general must be a human-chimney.

Before the colonel could raise his hand to make the salute, the general happily sitting in his chair, raised his hand first to stop him.

"Please. Don't give me this ridiculous hand sign," he simply told. ''I know who you are, Colonel Roy Mustang. Also nicknamed the Flame Alchemist and Hero of Ishval, correct?"

"They are all correct, sir," Roy said.

He believed that he just ate dirt and dust due to the heaviness of the smoke in the room.

"And please, no 'sir,'" he interrupted again. ''I don't like when people are calling me 'sir'. I am just forty-six. Please, have a seat so we can discuss of our small matter at hands.''

Roy obeyed. He sat on one of the two chairs facing the general's chair. When he sat down, the colonel had a clear look at the man in charge of the town. He was smoking a cheap cigar between his two rows of yellow teeth. He had a three-day beard, deep brown eyes, short brown hair and a scar across his nose. He was wearing some victory medals and the promotion badges. For each small golden trophy, blood had to be spilled and sacrifices had to be made; this general didn't seem to be bothered by such inhuman acts. Roy didn't show off with most of them since the genocide of Ishval, but it seemed that some people went out to prove their crimes. Roy thought the general could be somewhat inhuman or like most soldiers are in the army just be an army dog.

Manuel suddenly clapped his hands together. An honest grin was decorating his face similar to the one of shrimp's when he was in a light mood.

"I am quite glad to finally meet you, Roy Mustang. I heard a lot about you from my men and I must say that you do live up to your exploits."

He took a toxic breath of the cigar and continued.

"I guess the army finally sent me my request for our small problem."

He chuckled with ease, leaving gray smoke coming out of his nostrils and teeth.

"If I may ask s… Manuel. This small problem was not mentioned in the letter I read ten days ago, can you explain it to me in detail?"

The general smiled and nodded.

"I guess I should. Since you went through all the trouble to come to our small town, it's the least I could do."

He dropped the cigar in a small vase with sand covering the border.

"Six years ago, we had a problem in our small community. A dangerous man is on the loose in this very town."

It was a very well hidden dangerous man then. If the colonel recalled correctly, the town seemed to be a lively population with happy folks and children. Usually when a criminal was in the urban wild, the citizens were mostly getting paranoid. However, the general did say 'six years ago', so maybe the man was still in the town, but after a long term of non-activity from him, people tended to forget and come back to their normal lives.

After this revelation, Manuel opened one of his desk's compartments, grabbed a document and handed to Roy. The alchemist uncovered the document to be greeted with files, photos of crime scenes and a crime profile of a certain Samuel.

''His name is Samuel, a dangerous alchemist. He is wanted since six years now and we never manage to catch him. He isn't a State Alchemist, thankfully, so you can say that he will be not a problem for you.''

Roy scanned the papers of the mysterious Samuel. The wanted man had a large history of experiments and activities under the military jurisdiction. Samuel didn't participate in the Ishval war and was transferred in Silent Hill seven years ago. Near of the end of his daily activities, the alchemist's hand writing suddenly changed. The letters and words were almost incomprehensible; it immediately warned the army of the man's mental condition. Roy could figure out the words ``I don't want to die´´ and at the bottom of his last report the wanted alchemist wrote ''don't let me live." It was obvious that the man had gone mad.

On the photos, they were telling more than any description from an eyewitness. Photos on the crime scenes showed the victims of the man covered in dirt and filth, lying on the scorched ground and melted to them were strange grayish patches. On closer inspection, the patches were something much more sinister and demented than he would have initially thought. The criminal was fusing metal to his victim's skin. The consequences were various and sickening. It agonized the victim by slowly poisoning them due to intolerance to a large quantity of iron in the blood, the steel could even dislocate the limb it was attached to, and a particular picture, a child's dead body was cowering in a corner with his two metallic feet plaguing his ankles and the rest of his legs. The victims suffered greatly before they eventually die by the experiments' consequences or by someone else with mercy.

"You want me to track a crazy alchemist?" the alchemist declared as he hid the horrible photos at the end of the document without a trace of fear in his voice.

Manuel had a big grin on his face when Roy asked the question.

''Sort of. I already sent many of my soldiers and other agents seeking out Samuel, but they all failed and they all came back empty handed. So I thought to myself; if I could have an alchemist like him, maybe he would come out of his hole. Plus, since you have such a reputation in your pocket, maybe it will interest Samuel.''

''So, I'm basically bait for this man?''

''In a sense, yes, but don't worry you will never see Samuel. In Silent Hill, it's my soldiers who protect the people, not the other way around.''

The voice of the general had slightly cracked when he mentioned Samuel. It was a sign of fear and his hands would show it. The muscles of the general were tense and his shoulders had stiffened for a brief moment. It appeared that Samuel was a terrifying man to the general and for all the good reasons. When he stopped to take a brief moment of relaxation, Roy scanned through the papers and the disturbing photos again. He figured out something strange in the whole document.

There was no picture, not even a photo of the crazy alchemist to identity him. The physical description was on the report, but the small space for the soldier's photo was not there. Another interesting fact about this alchemist had a very similar name to Manuel. Except the letter 'M' and 'S' at the beginning of each name, their name was extremely similar. It could be a strange coincidence or a plan put together by Manuel for Roy to arrive in Silent Hill. However, the alchemist wasn't worrying for the worst; he was after all in a friendly territory and what would Manuel want from Roy? They never saw each other in Ishval and it was the first time Roy met Manuel. Besides, why would the general give so much trouble to invite Roy to Silent Hill? So he could kill him or something? If it was the case, the alchemist will not restrain himself to stop Manuel's schemes.

When Roy finished, he closed the document and gave it back to Manuel.

''I began to understand why you need the support of Central, but why did you not send it as an urgent assistance with this kind of criminal on your shoulders?''

The general didn't reply to the colonel. Either he was hiding something or he was still in some sort of mental condition which he didn't hear the colonel. Naturally, if the Army would have known of the activity of a mad alchemist, they would have immediately replied and sent reinforcement. However it took them six years to send, not a group or a squadron, but one man and this one man was him. The odds were getting stranger by the second.

"Samuel kidnapped old and young people to become lab rats for his experiments,'' explained Manuel after he relaxed. ''I don't think I need to tell you the results of his crimes; the pictures are telling enough. We put them out of their misery if they were still breathing, but their common criminal is still crawling under a rock somewhere in Silent Hill."

''So you requested help from Central and it turned out to be me. I found it quite strange you requested the help of one man to find this criminal and not a group, Manuel," Roy honestly pointed out to the man, but Manuel wasn't going to frail toward this reality.

"Think what you might Roy, but what do we need is your alchemy powers and your presence. You can burn this monster with a single gesture of your fingers, no?" he simply put without raising his voice. "You can say it's overdoing, but Samuel must to be taken down when we find him. We can protect you from him, however if he manages to get to you without us noticing, you'll have to protect yourself."

Roy remained silent; he didn't need to talk back to Manuel unlike the woman who stormed out of his bureau. If the superiors of Central accepted the request of Manuel, he had to accept.

"Very well, so you want him dead if I find him?" he asked without emotions.

''Precisely.'' Manuel grinned widely.

When the two men finished their discussion, a siren echoed through the town. Instantly, Roy stood up and was immediately followed by Manuel. It sounded like a bombarding alarm, but it was too high and was piercing through the ears of Roy. Through a gesture, Manuel ordered Roy to follow him. Both men quickly moved through the small corridor. As they walked, Roy could see the chaos in the small paths. The blue soldiers were running as they tried to find their positions for the mechanical shrieks. What was the reason for this agitation? Were they under attack? What's going on? The questions in Roy's head kept pilling up and even if he asked out loud the siren would only drown his voice.

On the same floor as Manuel's bureau, they arrived at a transmission and radio room. Manuel entered the room, leaving the door wide open, but showed Roy to stay outside. In the door frame, he saw the many radios and their users trying to communicate with someone, but Roy couldn't hear who and couldn't know if they were hearing something on the outside. He checked on the lips movements of a radioman talking to Manuel. The colonel could understand the word '_Central'_, '_Urgent,'_ and '_Backup'_. It was a bad sign.

Somehow the siren became louder; Roy immediately put his hands on his ears to muffle the sound, but it didn't work. Even Manuel put a hand on his ear and some soldiers passing by were suffocating the sound even with their palms on their ears.

At one point, even with the siren's cries, Roy's ears adapted to the shriek for a short moment. Confused by this new adaptation, he removed his hands and turned his head to his left. He didn't know why and he didn't know to what occasion he did it, but he saw something; someone that shouldn't be there, something that shouldn't be part of this world. At the end of the dirty path, in the chaotic running, a figure stood still with a smile and a hand trying to reach gently the colonel. Roy stood there, stunned and surprised. He didn't understand and he couldn't. It couldn't look like someone who just arrived at work this morning with a smile on its face. However, he was there. He got away from the door frame and walked slowly toward the figure without bumping into anyone. Unfortunately, he didn't get far from his initial start point.

''Get down!''

An unknown and powerful force pushed Roy into a wall. The strength of the force backfired through his entire body. He felt his body thrown like a rag doll and fell on the ground completely numb. His vision blurred and his conscious was slipping away. He tried to fight back the weakness invading him, but alas he couldn't move and the last of his physical force was vanishing quickly. He let out a small sigh as he searched for the person, but he was gone. His head felt dizzy and he finally lost consciousness.

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><p><strong>Special thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	3. Alone in the Mist

Chapter 3: Alone in the Mist

"_A solo assignment, sir?"_

"_Yes and it seems I can't avoid it. For what I can read, it's inside a small town in the north named Silent Hill."_

"_Never heard of it, sir."_

"_Neither have I, Lieutenant. Neither have I…"_

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><p>A cold pressure surrounded the unconscious man. Unaware of his surroundings, a tall figure stood still before him and watched him with two bright red eyes. The figure wasn't moving or breathing at all. When Roy groaned as he started to feel the cold and the pain going through him, the figure walked away in silence, leaving no trace of its existence.<p>

The alchemist woke up from his slumber and was welcomed by a sharp pain in his right arm. He clenched his teeth and quirked his injured arm. It didn't seem broken as he still felt it and his fingers were moving without problems. He let loose a sigh of relief. To better understand his situation, he observed his surroundings. In front of him and a bit to his right, he could see a fractured hole into the wall; only an explosion could have made it.

The headquarters was a wreck. The corridors were emptied and the cold gave a creepy atmosphere to the building's interior. Plus, to his surprise, there was no blood or bodies. The other soldiers must have already escaped, but if that's the case why was he left behind? He was alone, by himself in the ruins of the headquarters.

In a desperate attempt, the colonel got up even if his injured arm pained him.

"Hello! Is anyone here?" he shouted out. No answers. He tried again, but this other attempt was futile. Nobody answered him and he started to fear the worst. In a steady pace, he walked toward the staircases. If his memories served him right, the soldier who greeted him told he would put his suitcase in the guest room.

Since all the conditions he was in were less than reassuring, the alchemist needed his gloves which he had stupidly left in his suitcase. Even with a gun to his waist, the colonel couldn't protect himself properly if his main weapons were missing.

He managed to get to the second floor and found something strange on this floor. Everything was neat and clean. Unlike downstairs, the floor had a comfortable carpet and two big windows were lighting the floor. Roy had to close his eyes and opened them to be sure he wasn't dreaming. He walked to a nearby door, but it didn't budge. He tried a second door; it came to the same results. He continued and finally…

*CLICK*

One of the doors opened and moved on its own by the cold breezes. Roy was hoping to find someone in it, but no. The room was empty and devoid of furniture. The only thing that hadn't been moved away was the window. The colonel walked inside the empty space and found something in the middle, below a dim light.

His gloves. His alchemy gloves.

A rush of power passed through every fiber of his body. With these in his hands, there was no way he could feel powerless. However, who would attack him and who was left in town? The uneasy feeling came back after the colonel took back his gloves and put one of them on his hand. He gave a look outside to see the weather; there a dense fog and a light rain was pouring down on the town. He looked back at the glove. In the end, they were useless.

"_Even with my gloves, I can be an easy target,"_ he cursed to himself. He took away the glove and put it in the same pocket as his sibling. He checked around the room in search for clues or anything else he could have missed. All he could find was dust.

Desperate, he walked downstairs and made it outside without problems. Just like the window of the room had showed him, the town was covered by the thick fog and small raindrops were falling from the sky. It would be impossible for the alchemist to do his art in those conditions. To add more to the problem, he couldn't see more than four or five feet in front of him. If he was blind, it wouldn't be much of a difference.

He walked down the street with his senses on alert as he tried to find someone or something to tell him what's going on. He tried a car parked across the street, but the keys were missing.

Of course.

He checked the engine and his eyes slightly widened. There was no engine. It was as if someone cut the wires and stole it.

"_This town is just getting weirder_," Roy thought. He continued and looked through the windows of a few shops and restaurants. There was no sign of life or human activity. He was certain he was the only living being or rather human left in the entire town.

"_I have to get out of this town and report all of this to Central,"_ he said to his own self.

As the words come out, a flash came to his mind. It was the simple image of a man standing still in the corridor with a smile on his face. Then, the explosion followed right behind him as the force pushed him further away. A chill came down his spine and his injured arm suddenly ached. For some reason, the man standing was terrifying him, but made him at ease. His head must have taken a good hit to not remember the stranger's face. Who was he and why did he try to get closer to him? If he didn't move, he could have died by the explosion.

"_Get your mind straight, Roy. You must get out of here, after you can ask yourself questions_," he told his confused self. He decided to go back to the port; with a bit of luck he could find a boat and be off.

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><p>Later, he found the port. The boats were all gone and the few left behind were broken, wrecked or destroyed. They were all impossible to use. It left Roy with very few options. He couldn't swim back to the other side shore; the water was too cold, even for a dip. There was maybe a road he can take, but it would take at least three to five days to walk back to Central. Plus, did anyone else other than the residents of Silent Hill and him know about the town's location? He doubted it.<p>

"Damn it, how am I supposed to go back to Central now?" he groaned as he breathed in his hands to give him some heat.

Suddenly, out of the fog, he heard the last thing he wanted to hear.

"Someone! HELP!"

The cries continued and Roy immediately ran to the source of the scream. It was a human's voice and a woman's, nonetheless. However, she seemed in trouble and needed assistance on the moment.

"HELP! ANYONE, HELP ME!" she continued.

In the fog, the alchemist could have sworn he had seen two figures entering a warehouse. The loud metallic door closed behind them as the woman's screams continued from within the warehouse. Hastily, the alchemist followed the couple into the warehouse, locking himself in like a trapped rat.

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><p><strong>Special thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	4. The Choking man and the Hand

Chapter 4: The Choking Man and the Hand

"Damn it, it's locked."

The fire alchemist tried to open the heavy door behind him, but it was in vain. He must find another way out once he rescued the woman in distress. The yells and screams of this poor damsel in distress continued as he silently followed behind the arranged and well placed wooden boxes.

The warehouse was populated by small crates and huge metallic containers about twice his height or even more. However, they weren't the important thing at the moment.

The woman's pleas echoed back and forth from the warehouse's walls, before they finally ceased after a loud noise. When Roy found the back door, he could barely hear anything from the wooden door. Thinking of his reward, the colonel took out his revolver and prepared himself for the danger ahead. In front of the door, he used the weight of his body to lunge himself in the room. The door immediately succumbed to the colonel's attack and presented only darkness.

In the dark room, he couldn't hear the woman's voice; he feared the worst. To add salt to the wound, his ears heard a strange muffled sound coming from - what appeared at first glance - a sitting man with something sharp in both hands ready to strike downwards.

''Army! Drop your weapons, now!'' he yelled to the faint shade in the shadows.

There was a heavy silence. The room was filled with nothing more than the colonel's deep breaths and stranger's muffled voice. The assailant's breathing had something wrong to it and somehow reminded him of squashing meat. The mysterious attacker in the shadow got up from its sitting position and slowly turned its head toward the alchemist, still holding the knives in its hands, but now the sharp edge was in front of it at the level of its neck. Finally, the shade moved, but its footsteps were sloppy and they were heavy when they hit the cement ground.

"Don't move or I'll shoot!" he tried to intimidate toward the shade.

However, his words fell on deaf ears. The shade made another step and Roy remained in his position ready to shoot and kill the figure. The few rays of light finally revealed the assailant's weapons. They weren't knives; it was a sharp-edged disc at its neck level and it was attached to its throat. Caught by surprise and terror, Roy took several steps back, his eyes wide open to the horror and his heart was racing. He was out of the room and so was the shade.

No... He couldn't describe it as a shade, but now only as a repulsive monster.

It was taller than Roy and it was slim, almost anorexic. The arms were wrapped in blue and blood-stained clothes. It didn't take long for the colonel to figure out it was the Army's uniform ripped apart becoming this thing's clothing. Its head was bald with no eyes or nose to speak of; he could only see the depths of the body parts on its humanoid face. The mouth was open to the limit of the thing's muscles as a black mass was formed into its mouth. Its skin was rotten and rusty, must be the consequences for having this heavy and dirty disk attached around its neck. The disk in mention was some kind of a nightmarish design; barb wires were stitched to the monster's skin to maintain the heavy disk on the creature's shoulder. The disk's edge was recently sharpened and the utility of it was left to the colonel's imagination.

Roy's fingers were having a troubled time to keep the gun in his possession. The monster in front of him was beyond his imagination and its repulsive appearance was without a doubt making him afraid. He couldn't speak or let a sound out his mouth, as he thought of something horrible; is it one of Samuel's victims? On the shock, the monster tried to lunge its body at the alchemist. He had very little time to evade, but the colonel moved away at the last second. However, the disk surrounding the monster's neck managed to slightly cut his cheek. He didn't feel anything and immediately opened fire on the monster. He directly hit the thing in its chest two times and the miserable monster fell on the ground with the cutting disk hitting the floor first followed by its fragile body as its head was suspended in the air by the disk.

Roy took a minute to reclaim his calm, but he could barely find it. The adrenaline rushed through his veins and his instincts made him shoot the monster. To Roy, this thing was a monster from a demented man's nightmares. It was somewhat human, but did he or she knew who it was or not? Probably not, he or she must have lost its mind once transmutated, maybe.

Roy approached the thing and when he got close to it, he put his unarmed hand on his nostrils and mouth to block the smell. The poor victim smelt horrible as it must have being in this state for years. The monster had that common smell from dead and decaying bodies, but there was something more into it. It smelt like burning flesh. Something within Roy's mind was then triggered and his stomach forced him to withdraw, to empty his stomach behind some crates.

"Wh-... Just what's going on?" he whispered to himself as he cleaned his mouth with his sleeve. "Manuel told they were all dead. So how could it be alive?"

The alchemist knew that from here, things must just be getting worse, but he had to find a way out of this bad place. With a deep breath of fresh air and some courage, he passed by the smelly corpse and entered the darkened room. When he entered, he tried the circuit breaker; it wasn't lighting the room. The electricity was out of service, making it impossible for the alchemist to see other than vague shadows. Roy tried to find something he could light to make a homemade torch or something, but instead his luck smiled on him. Thanks to the small rays of light, they showed him a usual object: a lantern. He opened the small glass door and tried to use his alchemy to light it. After a couple of times, a tiny flame appeared inside the lantern and grew by the seconds.

It was than he could saw the room and the biggest missing element. There was no one else. He remembered clearly seeing two human forms entering the room. Furthermore, the monster couldn't be the assailant; its arms were wrapped up in those bloody, blue clothes and seemed stuck in it. Therefore, it was impossible to drag the woman in the room. The veteran was confused, but he tried to remain focus on his new objective: finding a way out of this warehouse.

He was searching the room when he found notes left by the warehouse's warden and a town map, which he gladly took, under the notes. The notes of the warden were unreadable; it was equivalent of a child's imaginary language. The only few words he could read were: _'Dogs'_, _'prison'_, _'Manuel'_ and _'Samantha'_. Without a concept, he couldn't clearly understand the meaning of the words, but it was enough to know that the warden knew General Manuel and a certain Samantha, whoever she was. When he put down the useless notes, he heard a small noise to his feet. He looked down and took the small object to his feet. It was a bunch of small identical keys. They have been in the end of the notes or between two pages he hasn't read.

Each key had a two letters on them; LA, RA, LL, LG, H. It must be a code, but the alchemist couldn't think of anything.

"_I should keep them. With a bit of luck one of them would open the entrance door_." With that in mind, he took the lit lantern and walked to the locked door.

He was mad; none of the small keys would open the door. What's worse was that they all fit in, but none unlocked the heavy door. Frustrated, he had only one option in hand, literally. After putting one of his gloves on, he snapped his fingers together and a stronger alchemy reaction back than the warden's room was triggered. A burst of flame hit the door, but to his unluckiness it didn't move an inch and there was no scratch. He was about to do it again, when he was stopped by a noise. It sounded like growls, canine snarl. He turned to the sound, but didn't see anything even if the growls continued. He removed his gloves and replaced it with his gun. Armed, the snarls stopped and the colonel's mind flashed him an important conclusion of a disastrous event.

"_I must find another way,"_ he said after accepting the mistake he just committed.

It was stupid; he knew it, but he also was reminded by his conscious of the risk of using his alchemy in an enclosed place. He could make something catch on fire and the warehouse was completely locked down. If the place was about to burn down, he wanted it to burn without him. Maybe it was due to his emotion that blinded him of the consequences of his alchemy, but the warehouse hadn't caught on fire and he was still breathing. He decided to look around the warehouse to find another exit.

He looked around for anything with the locks to match with the keys he found. He walked around and searched for any locked up crates or containers, even a door would be the best outcome. Thankfully, it didn't took him long to find the specific locked, metallic, and large container. There were five locks on it, all linked to one another by many chains to keep the door closed. Roy took the bunch of keys and started to guess. To his joy, it didn't take long and the large container was free from its bonds. He grabbed the door's handle and with his strength he struggled to open the heavy door.

Once opened, nothing seemed out of the ordinary within the container. However once he used the lantern to chase the darkness, something stuck out like a sore thumb.

"Nothing..."

There was absolutely nothing inside the container. No dust, no boxes, no items or furniture, nothing. Roy wasn't going to go inside the container since nothing caught his eye and it was apparently useless to get inside. He wasted precious time to only find an empty space. He sighed of frustration and turned down the flame of his lantern.

Then, something grabbed his leg.

''_What the_...?'' he shouted out by surprise and fear.

He didn't see what the attacker was, but it was impossible that it could be a human. The gray hand was gigantic and its grasp was holding his entire leg. The sudden grab more than surprised the colonel as he lost his balance and hit the floor. The hand started to drag him within the container.

''_Shit! Shit! Shit!''_

Panicked, the colonel held on the door's edges. The hand tried to pull harder, but the colonel wasn't going to let go easily. However, the thing squeezed its hand harder and he could have sworn all his leg's bones shattered. He let out an ear-piercing scream as the pain coursed through his body, forcing him to let go of his safeguard. The hand finally gave a last swing and the alchemist's entire body was within the container. His screams for help could be heard from the metallic box's gap, but no one could help him. The doors closed behind him, leaving no trace of his existence in the warehouse.

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><p><strong>Thank you to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	5. The Monster Who Survived the War

Chapter 5: The Monster Who Survived the War

_''Are you going?''_

_''Order from the high up, Riza. I cannot say no.''_

_''I know, sir. However, I doubt it's about something important.''_

_''I know. Probably it's nothing big, but I still have to go.''_

_'' We wish you good luck.''_

_''See you soon, Lieutenant.''_

* * *

><p>The freezing air awoke him from his slumber and his eyes could see thanks to the lit lantern in his hand, which he wasn't sure how it had lit by itself. He was standing up, which surprised him remembering the horrible pain he felt from the giant hand's squeeze. He shouldn't be able to be on his feet, but it seemed this event had never happened. However, he couldn't move his legs that had been slightly frozen by what seemed to be frost around them. He ordered them to move and finally they obeyed his command sluggishly. It didn't pain him; he only felt a bit heavier.<p>

He looked behind him and found the very same door which he was forced to enter. He remembered the giant hand holding him and dragging him into the container. His attention was shifted to his surroundings; he was in the container, but a frozen version of its interior.

"Damn it… Am I dreaming or something?" he snapped under the cold air.

Behind him, he could see the door locked by a chain stuck in the ice. On the door, someone had carved something with a knife recently.

**"GET OUT OR STAY WITH THEM FOREVER"**

Who was 'them'? And who wrote this? The message was meant to him, but it was bizarre. Could it be where everyone had gone into? He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He had to find a way out of the cold storage, if not this cold would affect his mobility or worse make it difficult to use his fingers, due to frostbite. He took a few steps in front of him and realized something.

"What the hell?"

It's then he realized he wasn't just in the container, but in a terrifying, familiar place. With the ice covering the surface and the ceiling above his head, the houses made of stone gave him the only clue he needed to figure out his location. At first, he denied it. It was impossible; how could he be here? Everything was frozen; it was impossible that this place would be covered by frost and snow. This place was where he killed, destroyed, murdered and burned innocent lives. There was no doubt, it was Ishval.

"Why? What's going on?"

He wished to wake up from this nightmare, but his senses were saying otherwise. Even in this world of frost, how could he deny? He was there, but it was so beyond reality that he even had problems believing what he was seeing was true. There was the monster he saw in the warden's room and the mysterious disappearance of all the citizens of the town who triggered an alarm in the colonel's mind, but this, this was beyond his imagination. His instincts were telling him to run away as fast as he could from this world. It was also his plan since the beginning, but how? Could it be that the _'them'_ in the message were referring to the Ishvalans? No, there was no way he would stay one more minute in this frozen prison with this entire population who hated him. He must advance into this world even if this world would bring havoc to his mind. He took out his firearm in one hand and followed the only road.

The walk didn't take too long before the lantern shined another sitting and disturbing figure. It was another one of those disk monsters. Strangely enough, Roy had a name in his head for this monster. It was strange to call a monster by another name than 'monster', but he must make the identification to the similar atrocities to be able to identify them later on. Plus, given a name to a nameless thing was to also give them an identity and a weakness. Their name would be Coughman. He tagged them with this name, since they seemed to struggle to breathe air and also to their humanoid shape.

Knowing the monster was going to attack him, he aimed the weapon toward the monster. The Coughman painfully got up. A part of its skin was ripped away by the icy floor and its feet were black after the frostbites. That was all it did, before something unexpected happened.

From the shadows, the giant hand appeared. This time, Roy had a clear view of his previous assailant. It was a human hand about five times bigger than a regular hand which showed up and grabbed the poor Coughman by its legs, just like him. Fanatically, the Coughman tried to free itself as it howled and struggled in front of Roy who only watched. The hand lifted up the Coughman and smashed its body against the frozen ground with the force to smash a watermelon on the ground. The Coughman's neck snapped on contact and the black mass in its mouth came off. The skull of its head didn't have a chance after it hit its own disk; it made a small opening and some kind of yellowish substance came out, similar to blood. The disk also broke in half; it had to due to the strength of impact made by the arm linked to the hand. It was obvious the Coughman was killed on the shock, but it didn't end there. The hand dragged the corpse into the darkness in front of Roy and a metallic noise was fading away.

Roy's body couldn't move. So many horrified screams in his brain hit his head in a single blow that he could have sworn his skull broke like the Coughman's. Even if all his fibers of his inanimate body were crying to move, all he could do was stare at the abyssal alley. All he could do to calm himself was to think about a quick rational explanation before the hand came back. This hand was the same one who dragged him into this world, but how could it even exist? A human could not have this size hand. It was either artificially grown or this sick Samuel made the body of a living human about five to six times the ideal size, but the documented report of Samuel's activities was only fusing metal to skin. How could he have done it and this victim still be alive? Was it just a hallucination made by Roy's mind? Had he gone insane?

''No,'' he simply told himself.

If he was going to believe he's insane, there's no way he will survive this ordeal. He had to find a way out of this frozen city, but the colossal hand was still lurking in the darkness. If this giant hand caught him, he knew he would end up like the Coughman. He didn't have much choice; he had to push his body limits to move so he could find an exit and he needed to do it fast. Plus, the air around him started to get through his clothes and his eyes were starting to hurt; he didn't have much time.

He ran around the cold streets to find the exit. While running, he couldn't stop to glimpse over his shoulder. He was scared that the giant hand in the shadows was following him. He turned right and left, took small alleys and main streets, but at the end of most roads there was a dead end. A wall of ice blocked his way. As a natural reflex, the flame alchemist tried to use his power, but no sparks came out. He tried again, but nothing happened. He couldn't find his way through and with that in mind he continued to find an escape route.

While he was searching, he heard a loud growl and hisses of grinding metal of the monster with the giant hand. He hid in a small alley, wrapped the lantern in his arms to not give away his position and hoped the monster didn't see him, didn't see the lantern's light and that he wasn't going to catch on fire. He could hear the monster's breaths. It was a wracking and painful breathing. The colonel's feet were starting to get stiff from the cold and Roy was mentally repeating to the monster to go away. After a moment of silence, the monster probably lost its interest and went off. Before moving out, he glanced back to reassure himself of his security and marched off to find his goal.

He ended up in the central plaza or more like its icy counterpart. The plaza was a large and circular space. A fountain was built in the middle, usually for the people to hydrate from the desert's heat but was useless in this world. If his memory served him right, it was in a similar place to this that the trigger of the Ishval war was thrown: the Amestrian soldier who shot an Ishvalan child in a similar public place. This act drove all Ishval into a violent state and they lost their principals to avenge this one child's death and the violent behaviors of the whole Army. He checked the fountain and discovered something both macabre and bizarre. At the top of the fountain, where the water should sprout, it was replaced by numerous chains and at their ends were rusty hooks. Below the strange structure, a new handwriting was carved in the ice surrounding the fountain.

''_The glory was chased away_

_Attach it back to its place_

_To find your way''_

"Attaching the glory… back to its place?" he murmured to himself.

Was it talking about the monster lurking around the town? How can it be the glory of someone? He asked too many questions. It mentioned at the end _'to find your way;'_ maybe it was referring to the exit. It was crazy, but he had to give it a try.

He put back his gloves on to avoid his skin becoming glued to the cold metal and grabbed one of the chains. He waved it around and made a distorted sound of carillons. A howl responded to the noise and Roy hide behind the fountain's small wall opposed to the coming monstrosity. He softly put down his lantern on the ground next to him it and secretly he glimpsed the incoming monster. He hoped the monster would be attracted by the light, so Roy could attack the monster from a dead angle and _'bring it back to its glory'_. If this plan didn't work, he better welcome his death.

From a dark corner between what seemed to be shops, the monster showed up. Maybe due to the ice, a small light showed the disturbing monster's appearance. It was grosser than the Coughman. This thing was about eleven feet tall and didn't even have legs; actually its bottom half was cut off. Its arms were disjointed and all that supported them to the shoulders was a twisted version of a surgical device directly connecting to its shoulder-blades. Roy recognized the disgusting hands of the monster. Its mouth was fully gapped by wires and needles piercing through its lips and gums. The teeth and the bottom of its mouth were reddish, the remains of the killed Coughman. The torso was infected by what seemed to be a disease Roy saw back in Ishval, probably measles. The head was wrapped around by a large quantity of skin and a part of its skin cheek was peeled off. Actually, a lot of its skin was peeled off, maybe caused by the constant contact with the ice, mostly its palms and the bottom, causing the monster to be in constant agony.

Roy remained mute, by force, and returned to his spot when the monster turned its head toward him. The monster approached. The metal of its twisted device was screeching, which could awake anyone from a deep sleep. It breathed icy air and its breath came out as a puff of gray smoke. Its yellow and rotten teeth were bloodstained and soon they would get bloodier. Each movement was making it suffer even more as it moved closer to the alchemist as it lowered its back. The monster arrived behind the fountain and howled to terrify his victim. However, there was no scream that followed the monster's call; there was only a small lantern shining on the featureless monster.

The alchemist jumped on the back of the monster with two chains in his hands. The monster howled and 'stood up' as it tried to chase off the vermin. Quickly, Roy hooked the monster on its back and jumped off the monster's ragged back. He backed away just in time when the monster's nails almost scratched his torso. The monster tried to catch Roy, but the hooks were keeping the beast at bay from the man. It shrieked and tried to grab the chain to free itself. Like presenting a cross to a vampire, it repelled the monster and it screeched in agony. The monster tried it best to free itself, but it was caught and outsmarted by the man it chased. The twisted device had too much pressure from its agitated host; it finally gave up from the violent and continuous wriggles. The metallic device simply broke and shattered to pieces. The scraps slid on the ice and a few screws got stuck on the fountain's ice and one passed near Roy's head. It tried to use its powerless arms to balance its weight without the twisted device, but alas the beast fell. The ice under it cracked and cut short the life of the monster.

Roy looked at the monster and didn't even have the guts to touch it. There was no way he'd touch this thing again, let alone walk on it. He walked away from the beast, folding his arms, and took back the lantern. He knew that in his heart he should feel joy, after killing such a monster after what seemed an eternity, but he couldn't feel a glimpse of happiness in this act, but more shame and guilt. The feeling could not be explained and words couldn't describe this sudden emptiness at this monster's death.

The adrenaline rush had already left him and his body revealed his real condition. He was freezing. In a last hope, he took a few steps from his initial position, but nothing seemed to have changed and he didn't hear a single noise after the beast died. In the end, there was no exit.

"Ah… it was… just a joke… a sick… joke…" It was his last shaking words before he followed the monster he caught with pride.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	6. The Woman below the General

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: TO AVOID CONFUSION BETWEEN 'ISHVAL' AND 'ISHBAL', THIS FANFICTION WILL IDENTIFY THESE INDIVIDUALS AS 'ISHVALAN' AND THEIR COUNTRY AS 'ISHVAL'. I APOLOGIZE FOR THIS SUDDEN CHANGE.**

**SINCERELY,**

**PHANAX LEMINER**

* * *

><p>Chapter 6: The Woman below the General<p>

_Two round bright red eyes were watching him._

_His body was numbed, but his mind was aware of the pair of red eyes watching him. _

_Standing before him, the pair of eyes was a part of a tall shadow without any form to speak of. It could be as much humanoid as alien. The eyes moved to the left, it head tilted just like the one of a confused dog. _

_The colonel had no idea if this thing was thinking to eat him or to watch him more._

_The eyes moved to the right. From this angle, the man's sight could see the shade of a long bird beak and the silhouette of a hooded humanoid's face. Whether it human or a monster, he couldn't tell._

_The eyes disappeared and the monster's body shifted behind. With a colossal effort, the alchemist's eyes moved down and he saw a figure. Unlike the monster, the figure was a human and the alchemist could somehow see a dark shade of blue on the human. _

_The alchemist tried to speak, to yell to the man to run, but no sound came out of his mouth, instead the man opened fire on the creature. _

_The detonation was painful to the alchemist's ears and his vision faded. There was a moment where he could only hear his heartbeats and his fragile breath. It was total darkness. He thought he died, but his vision came back._

_His sight was at first blurred, but it was enough to see a new pair of eyes. The monster's eyes and the shining eyes hanged vertically from the monster's beak. They weren't eyes; they were broken lenses from a pair of glasses. His heart ached and suddenly his voice came back as he realized who the monster's victim was._

* * *

><p>He awoke at his own scream and was greeted by a ceiling. He felt agitated and stressed from the nightmare. What was the meaning of all this? He knew who the victim was, but his name was lost on the tip of his tongue. He knew him, but his head felt like clouds, light and smoky. He put his hand on his face, as he tried to reconstruct his confused mind to find the man's name, but nothing came out.<p>

It was then he realized something; his hands were warm.

The cold was gone and he was in room where there was no frost or cold. There was no expression on his face before he concluded the welcome truth of the moment. Finally, he smiled. All of those horrific events were just a big follow up of a nightmare and the town must have regained its normality. He stood up and looked around his bed.

The room was decorated in a modern fashion. The furniture wasn't dusty or worn-out; it was has it was brand new. The bed he was in was comfortable, soft and brought him security after been trapped in this frightening nightmare.

He tried to get up, to see the person who took care of him and to thank him for taking care of him. He probably lost consciousness after the explosion in the headquarters and his mind wandered into the dark side of his conscious.

It was then something strange happened: his legs gave out immediately when he tried to stand. He sat down on the bed's edge and the feeling of insecurity suddenly hit him. With his fingers, he touched the upper part of his legs. He could feel the minor pressure, but something felt strange. Hesitating, he grabbed one of his pant legs and lifted up to see the source of this abnormal feeling. The revealed skin was red, a deep dark red. It was a common symptom after been exposed too long to cold temperatures. In this revelation, his shaking hands touched his cheeks and felt a slight scar on one of them.

The fear was back and this time, he had the reason to be. He didn't dream about the Frozen Ishval or the Coughman in the warehouse, not even the crawling monster. All he had seen was real. Anxiety struck him similar to being punched by Armstrong; he could have died and his body lingered on the frosted floor, before the crawling monster arrived to leave no trace behind. Even in this grasped fear, he remembered well the writings in the fountain's ice had said the truth. He did find the way out or, at least, someone got him out.

He stood there for a moment, before he could hear footsteps from outside. At first, he believed it was the warning of an incoming Coughman, but they were slightly different. However, he couldn't take the chance. This place was abandoned and he was the only human in this entire town; the only conclusion he could come up with was that a different Coughman was coming. He quickly looked under his feet and saw his revolver rested on the floor. He grabbed it and aimed its deadly end toward the closed door. The steps came closer, stopped in front of the door and the handle moved. He then just realized something - the arms of the Coughman were trapped in their clothes so, who could it…?

The door opened itself by a push and a woman was in the door's frame. It wasn't just any woman either; it was a wearer of the blue uniform, with short blond hair and blue eyes. Her face wasn't showing any emotions, she had this familiar thread from a particular lady Roy knew very well. She smirked at the view of the colonel holding his gun in front of her. She must have thought of some nagging remark toward the alchemist.

''Good morning to you too, colonel,'' she simply replied.

The man lowered his weapon and a feeling of intense happiness washed away his negative emotions. He wasn't alone, he was with someone else, he had lost hope to see someone, but fate decided to turn into his favor. He smiled as the horrors he witnessed before were all part of a temporarily forgotten memory.

''Glad to see I'm not alone,'' he responded with an easy tone.

The mysterious female soldier came in the room and sat on the chair facing Roy. She crossed her legs together and folded her arms as if she was frustrated like a spoiled child, but her face was oddly calm and almost static like a statue.

It was quite an awkward moment for both individuals. The woman must have saved him somehow from the Frozen Ishval, and he woke up from a nightmare which turned out to be real or his body mimicked the perfect symptoms of all the assaults and environment hazards of his bad dream. She seemed completely ignorant of the fact the town was abandoned and the Coughman probably wandering around the town.

''I never thought I was going to see someone else in town. Out of all people you had to be the one to be stuck here with me,'' she mentioned with a sarcastic tone.

It wasn't the best first impression Roy could have hope for. The second time she opened her mouth and already it sounded she had a grudge against the alchemist. ''But, I have no complaints; an alchemist is always good to have around.''

He had the feeling she was treating him like an object. He knew every well how most people viewed alchemists; they only have to draw circle with a complex formula and make a miracle before the common folks' eyes to be after use by the Army as weapons. It was almost scary once he thought through after he received the name of State Alchemist and had become the perfect fact of this statement during the Ishval war. He wasn't seen as a normal human by most people, but as a devil breathing fire on the flesh of his victims and on their habitation. Maybe the female soldier knew of Roy's activities in Ishval and was maybe afraid of him.

''As a fellow comrade, you could tell your name,'' he said, impatient with the attitude of the woman.

Her emotionless face suddenly morphed to a face full of joy and a wide smile was formed with her mouth. This sudden change slightly surprised the colonel. For a split second, he could have sworn the woman switched places with someone else looking just like her. It was a mood swing or what seemed to be.

''I am sorry. My name is Samantha. Samantha Swagger.'' she told him with this uncomfortable smile on her face. ''I know you, so you don't need to tell me your name. By the way, did we almost bump into each other yesterday?''

He didn't catch it at the beginning, but it didn't take long before he remembered the same woman storming out of Manuel's office during the presumable 'yesterday'. The voice was the same as the yells and yet there was another moment his memory resurfaced. Right before the explosion, someone pushed him from the incoming explosion in the headquarters and yelled. It was, again, her voice.

''We did and you saved me before the explosion. You have my thanks,'' he simply told her while he was putting the gun on the bed, near him.

''I did. Unfortunately, I couldn't have done the same for the others,'' she added with a small and sad voice.

He remembered well that Manuel was in the room alongside the ten other soldiers. The chances of their survival were slim, but Samantha did mention she didn't meet anyone else before she found Roy. For the moment, the alchemist presumed the general to be dead or to a minimum degree, MIA.

''Shame, thought Manuel was quite the kind general.''

Roy was about to say a remark about her previous fight with the general, but instead he restrained himself and kept his opinion to himself.

''Coming back to the major issue, do you know any way to come out of Silent Hill?'' he questioned the woman.

Her face morphed again and she came back as the cold figure she was before. Roy wasn't sure anymore if the woman was in a sane psychological condition and it made him slightly uneasy when the woman's eyes glared into his.

''The radio is beyond repair in the headquarters, the boats are all ready to sink if we step on them, and the road to get out of the town is blocked. We are stuck.'' Her words were harsh and quick.

The condition of the radio and the boats were already known by Roy, however the main road was something new to the alchemist. How could a road, and mostly the main road, could be blocked and by what. The _'what'_ made a goose bump in his stomach. Was it a monster, an infrastructure from the Frozen Ishval or something else? Either way, he had to go investigate.

''I don't exactly believe the main road is blocked.''

''I am telling you, it is. If you don't believe me, you can check it for yourself, colonel.''

Another topic also needed to be talked about: the fact monsters were roaming in the town. However, Samantha seemed not even slightly disturbed by the situation than he was. Maybe she still didn't see the monsters or she had but forgot about it like she forgot her fight with Manuel. Probably he was going to sound like a mad man, but he preferred to sound like a fool than to let someone die in this hell.

''Samantha, I have a question. Did you meet bizarre creatures while you were searching for a way out?'' it sounded less crazy than he thought.

''Bizarre creatures? No.''

Again quick and harsh. He couldn't know if she was telling the truth or she was toying with him. After she responded, her stare seemed out of place and it was no longer focused on the colonel, but on the window behind him. The alchemist made a quick look behind him, but didn't see anything through other than the fog and tiny raindrops on the window.

''I have to go.'' she got up and was about to get away.

''Wait!'' she stopped. ''It would be better to stay together and work our way out of this town. It will reduce the time of staying in here.''

She turned toward the now standing alchemist. His legs were still soured, but he could hold on. Her face showed a sudden fatigue and indifference as her family name would suggest. The woman wasn't herself, she was giving the impression to the colonel of been a serial murder running away with her hand covered in blood.

''Working together? No, I preferred to die than to be with a killer.''

On that statement, she swaggered away without closing the door behind. Bothered by the woman's explanation, Roy didn't stop to reason the mad woman. She must be afraid of him; it must be the only excuse she had to reject Roy's company. However, why she saved him and brought him back to the room safely from the danger outside? Even with this act of heroism, she still clings to the idea to be alone. Plus, if he was useful to have around as she stated before, would it be better to have him on her friendly side? Another question has surfaced, but it was too late to ask to the woman; how did she manage to get inside the Frozen Ishval? The questions kept pilling up, but none were answered so far.

Before pulling a plan, he had to make sure of some uncertainties. He grabbed the revolver on the bed, he checked the clip; full of ammos. Confused, he grabbed the lantern near of a coffee table; it was fuel of oil. He looked at the opened door and sighed of disbelief.

''Why would she help me?'' he wondered.

The last thing to do now was to find a way out. He took a deep breath as he looked to the foggy outside and walked out of the room with uneasiness.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	7. The Black Wall

Chapter 7: The Black Wall

''No surprise, it doesn't open.''

The hands of Roy were on the same door handle which he came the first time. He tried to use force to open the door, but metallic door wouldn't give in to a frustrated Roy. It was no use; he couldn't get inside to be sure if his fight against the monster in the Frozen Ishval was real or not, even if his red skin on his leg from before wasn't a lie. He gave up after two minutes, knowing he couldn't make the door move.

After finding a shop's roof as a shelter from the rain, the alchemist unfolded his map to find the main road. On the piece of paper, the main road was about thirty minutes' walk and with some luck he could finally come out of the abandoned town.

While walking in the empty streets, he couldn't ignore the feeling of being watched by something or someone. Maybe he had become paranoid after the monstrous encounters or maybe his mind was making sure he wasn't going to be killed by Samantha. The woman's real intentions were unknown to the alchemist and a part of him didn't have the guts to find out.

There was also the giant monster in the Frozen Ishval. Its death had made him nervous for some reason. Maybe it was because the thing was the closest thing he had encountered to look like a human before he saw Samantha. It had lived in this other Ishval for a long time. The dirt on the monster was heavy and the wounds of the metallic device had been infected by advanced frostbites. He remembered the monster's agonizing screams as it tried to free itself from the rusty hooks he used to trap it. Maybe he felt guilty or maybe it had made him sick of seeing its endless suffering. His mind in pain, Roy thought of a name for the miserable monster. It wasn't exactly the time or the place, but somehow identifying the monsters gave them a purpose to their existence and seemed to comfort him, somehow. The name Hightides was then put on the giant monster as it almost gave the impression of being attacked by a giant wave due to its size.

He reached the main entrance and exit road of Silent Hill. The exit was almost there; he sighed in relief and marched toward a hill. He encouraged himself as he could see the silhouette of a welcome sign or what he thought by the large rectangle forming not too far away. As he approached the sign, he coughed probably by the thickness of the fog. At the top, the large dark green rectangle was indeed a welcome sign. A forest green background with rusty white letters saying:

''**WELCOME TO SILENT HILL''**

Once he got to Central, he was going to make sure the sign would hit the ground and the town demolished with it.

However, even if he was about to get out, he coughed once more and suddenly his lungs seemed like if they were full of smoke and when he coughed again a puff of dark smog came out of his mouth. It was as if the alchemist was breathing millions needles. It was once the pain flowed through his chest that he focused behind him. Further he understood the violent behaviours of his body.

Not too far from him, the fog was pitch black and he could see the thick cloud swirling in the wind. The thick miasma seemed to not only block the road, but continued to expand on its left and right. It was possible for the dark wall to isolate the entire town, but it couldn't be the work of nature. The doings of Samuel, maybe? He doubted it; there's no alchemy he knew which could turn fog into toxic fumes, however he never really searched for the poison components in the air which increased could do this result. But how would an alchemist with the knowledge of metal would have accomplished this prison?

In his panic, he briefly wondered if the people who escaped while he was unconscious after the explosion in the headquarters managed to get through this dark menace before it killed them. If it weren't the case, then numerous bodies would float down the river and more could be found inside the black barrier.

By survival instinct and fear to join these poor souls, he turned around and walked away from the black fog to breathe fresher air.

Once he arrived at the lowest level of the hill, his lungs were finally finished extracting the small quantity of the black fog out of Roy's breathing system. He still wasn't sure of the main source but it had a similar effect to fire smoke. There was no doubt in that, but it was strangely highly toxic. Usually, a small quantity of fire smoke wouldn't hurt much more than having a feeling of light weight in the chest, but Roy breathed the same quantity to trigger a drastic alarm in his brain. Mad, Roy knew it was impossible to pass through the barrier of black smoke before passing out and dying of suffocation. Samantha didn't lie; the main entrance was blocked. On the edge of despair, he was forced once again to come back to square one.

He was sitting on a bench under a shop's roof as he observed his map. He was thinking of any buildings or places where there could be a working radio or a secret passage to get out of the cursed town. There was the headquarters and the warehouse on the piece of map; he struck down those two in his mind. There were restaurants, shops, a graveyard, an amusement park, a hospital and a prison. The restaurants and shops surely didn't have anything like a military radio, the graveyard and the hospital were the two last places Roy wanted to go in, and the amusement park was sticking out of the town's eerie atmosphere but couldn't help Roy much.

Finally there was the prison. The prison always had an emergency radio if anything would happen with the prisoners. There was still, on the other hand, the chance of meeting a prisoner, even a psychopath, but Roy was desperate to find a way out of the town. Thinking of other possibilities, he hoped no monsters arrived at the prison before him or something bigger than Hightides was waiting for him in the darkest place in the prison. He shook his head and got up to find the prison as if he was the hero of a horror novel ready to find the horrors waiting for him.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	8. Toluca's Prison and the False Hope

Chapter 8: Toluca's Prison and the False Hope

A dark atmosphere welcomed the alchemist as he stood before the rusty security gate. The prison was smaller than he anticipated; the building could at least hold up to a hundred criminals which showed Silent Hill's criminal demography. It had an immense wall surrounding the establishment and the building was one block with one large floor.

Through the gate, the colonel could see a small garden; it could have brought some charm to the building, but the fog had caused the flowers to slowly die even under the rain.

Roy grabbed hold on the gates and pushed them with all his strength to open. Ironically enough, the gates were just slightly opened which would have made the alchemist fall face first on the ground if he hadn't held on the gate's handles. He smirked slightly at the idea of the comedy and regained his balance. He looked up and saw a sign on top of the main door was naming the building:

''**Toluca's Prison''**

''_A strange name for a building...''_ He briefly wondered if the head of the establishment had a sense of humor like him. He brought back his seriousness at hand and headed inside the keeper of criminals.

Once inside, he saw the darkness occupying the entire space surrounding him. With his weakened alchemy, he lit the lantern and could finally see his surroundings. In this state, his alchemy gloves wasn't going to light up an entire room in one snap of his finger, but he had to keep them with a bit of chance he could use them at their best potential. Even though the fog was outside the prison, it had this heavy and humid air surrounding him; again he feared he couldn't use his alchemy again in order to protect himself. His gloves, for now, were as useful as a lighter which frustrated him and slightly hurt the pride of the Flame Alchemist. He took back his calm and searched around the main hall.

The main hall was as dirty as if a storm passed through the entire room. The wooden chairs were all broken, except one on his left and paper sheets were covering the floor. By his curiosity, he crouched and examined the first sheet he could take. It seemed part of a personal profile of an inmate; there was no picture on the sheet and had his criminal records. It seemed he was arrested for case of rape and treachery. Duty times and location revealed that he was a soldier, but the faction or his division was missing on the blank line. It wasn't a big surprise to Roy to see this. One day or another, a soldier can always abuse his power on civilians or lower ranked, which he never did. Roy didn't bother to check the other sheets of paper and he simply walked through them to find a door leading to the visitor hall.

It was a small hallway with the wallpaper starting to fall off and the light bulbs cracked, probably after a short circuit. He checked on the second door to his left and found an infirmary. Why the infirmary was in the visitor sector and not the cell sector, he didn't know and didn't exactly care at this point. Inside, the room was large enough large to hold five hospital beds. Each were separated by a torn out, plastic curtain suspended on horizontal pole. The bed-sheets were tainted in blood.

At first Roy stiffed at the sight, but his curiosity forced him get closer. At the bed's feet, his eyes saw a black-drawn silhouette as if the body of the patient were consumed by flames. It made him uneasy and felt as if the victim combusted instantly on the bed, a horrible way to die. It was the same for the four other patients, each with a different silhouette and body shape to distinguish one from another.

He could determine there were four men's shadows from the shoulders and the last one was a woman by the thinness of her waist. He wondered how did they died, but something struck him. Four men and one woman. A chill came down his spine as he understood his worries. He has four men and one woman in his team, but the shadows didn't match their silhouettes, however the coincidence was somewhat eerie.

After his creepy discovery on the bed-sheets, he headed toward a counter under three medicine cabinets. He put down the lantern and tried to find a first aid kit to heal his wound on his cheek. It was minor and almost healed, but the risks of infection were still present in such badly-conditioned building which was why he had to take extra precaution. He managed to find some disinfectant on the counter and some cotton in a hermetic glass jar. He wasn't a doctor, but he knew the basics of first aid. He disinfected the wound, used a square-bandage to stick on the damaged area and put back all the materials where he found them.

When he was about to take back his lantern, the weak fire lit upon something, catching Roy's attention. He took the object and dragged it toward the lighted area. It was a medical document. It was thick and conserved many sheets of paper within. The brown cover was sturdy and small black spots could be seen on the cover like drops of blood splattering on paper. Someone had tried to protect it.

''_Maybe it has information of what happened here...''_ he thought to himself.

He delicately opened the thick cover after giving a few dusts with his hand under it. The document was filled with the usual stuff; medical files, patient's sheets, inventory check-ups, time planning to give medicines to patients, reports of surgeries... the list goes on.

He separated the patient's sheets and found out there was only one recent patient that came in the infirmary. His admission was made the same day Roy arrived in the town. Strangely enough, the patient didn't have a name but his prison's code: 20-45. The prisoner's crime was rather heavy and his reason to be in the infirmary was nothing reassuring.

_PATIENT'S REASON: STABBED IN CHEST AREA. SELF INFLICTED._

The prisoner attempted suicide by stabbing himself in the chest. He had to suffer a lot for his crime or he was even more desperate than Roy was. At the end of the document, journal sheets were found. One of his eyebrows rose, but he smiled slightly. The journal's entries were recent and the handwriting could show it was from a woman, probably a nurse. There was only one page, not the biggest clue but it was still a clue. It was written as followed:

''_278th DAY_

_10AM: A GUARD BUSTED IN THE INFIRMARY. HE YELLED TO DOCTOR LLOYD ABOUT A DYING INMATE. THE DOCTOR ORDERED ME TO STAY IN THE ROOM WITH MALCOM AND JERRY. HE AND GEORGE RUSHED TO SAVE THE INMATE._

_10:13AM: THE DOCTOR AND GEORGE ENTERED THE INFIRMARY WITH THE DYING INMATE. IT WAS 20-45, THE NEWCOMER. I ASSISTED THE DOCTOR TO SAVE THE PATIENT FROM A DEEP WOUND IN THE CHEST. SADLY, THE PATIENT MISSED ANY VITAL ELEMENTS. AFTER THE OPERATION, THE PATIENT'S LIFE IS STABLE._

_4:21PM: THE PATIENT AWOKE FROM HIS SLEEP. I THOUGHT IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE, BUT HE AWAKE BEFORE ME. 20-45 ASKED ME WHY I SAVED HIM. I WONDERED TOO, BUT I LIED. THAT BASTARD. HE SHOULD KILL HIMSELF WITH THE SAME KNIFE HE USED TO KILL STEPHAN._

_7:55PM: 20-45 TRIED TO SUFFOCATE HIMSELF WITH MEDICAL PILLS. MALCOM AND GEORGE STOPPED HIM JUST IN TIME, UNFORTUNATELY. WHY DO WE KEEP HIM ALIVE?_

_11:23PM: I'M ON GUARD DUTY TONIGHT. 20-45 IS SCREAMING. _

_11:24PM: 20-45 IS SCREAMING._

_11:25PM: 20-45 IS STILL SCREAMING._

_11:26PM: 20-45 IS STILL SCREAMING. _

_11:27PM: 20-45 IS SCREAMING._

_11:28PM: 20-45 IS SCREAMING. HE YELLS 'THEY ARE BURNING ME.'_

_11:29PM: 20-45 ISN'T SCREAMING ANYMORE. I DRUGGED HIM.''_

The page ended on that note. The nurse's thoughts were terrifying. Roy had always this perception that nurses were kind and helpful to any patients they took care of. He must have thought wrong, not all women in those outfits were angels. Those were sinister thoughts and poisoning ones, too. However, the nurse seemed to know the criminal case of 20-45. Apparently, he killed a certain Stephan with a knife. The crime must have taken place in Silent Hill for the nurse to express the victim by his name and she seemed rather mad. Could it be the victim was her boyfriend? Nothing could tell.

There wasn't anything else that caught Roy's eye and he finally closed the file. When he turned around, he was facing the door which was wide open and in a fraction of a second he saw the fleeing figure of a man.

''Wait!''

His shout seemed not convincing enough, as the fleeing man continued his run. Roy took chase with his lantern lighting the way and came out of the infirmary in a second. He turned his head and found to his left the shadow going through a heavy door which he closed behind him. He ran after the shadow and passed through the same door with a bit of difficulty to budge since he didn't have the same amount of strength as some of his comrades. After he passed through, he believed he had lost his man, but the intruder's footsteps were going through a dark stoned corridor.

''Army, stop!'' he yelled out to the runner.

His ears were buzzing and his heartbeat was racing as if he were running a marathon. The man went through another door, but this time two doors closed at the same time. When he saw the two doors next to one another, he knew it was where his intruder went. He pressed through them and then was greeted by silence.

Roy took out his revolver and marched silently through the large room. When he was quietly walking through the room, his felt as if he was stepping into food or what seemed to be the remains of food. Next to him, he could see metallic tables nailed to the ground with seven small wooden chairs in rows. With these elements, Roy knew where he was: in a cafeteria. His intruder wasn't far and Roy knew he was watching him. He didn't know where the intruder was going to strike, and frenquently checked behind his shoulder to make sure the stranger wasn't behind him. The alchemist was alerted and he was going to be disappointed.

The footsteps reappeared, behind him. He swiftly turned around and his revolver was aiming at the intruder. With the lantern's light, the intruder's back was briefly illuminated before passing through the door Roy just came from. The intruder was slightly taller than him and he was wearing a clean blue military uniform. At head level, Roy didn't saw his face but the back of his head. The intruder had short black hair and Roy's eyes couldn't describe more of the intruder as he disappeared in the darkness and closed the cafeteria's doors behind him before locking the colonel in.

Roy dashed to the doors as he feared the worst. He tried to open them, but something was obstructing the entrance. He slammed the door and screamed to the tops of his lungs to open the door. However, the intruder was long gone and had successfully tricked Roy into his trap.

''Damn...'' he cursed under his breath.

He took several steps backward and put on his alchemy gloves. He snapped his fingers, but the gloves were still too soaked to do anything. He growled and put them away, forcing him to take back his revolver. He took several deep breaths before doing anything. When he calmed down, he decided to find another way out. It was impossible for this place to have only one entrance as the same exit. When he was about to turn, something roamed and howled in the room.

Suddenly, a chair flew at Roy as if someone tossed it. He avoided it just in time. When he looked at the chair, one of its feet was broken in half. The impact cracked the chair's back. His eyes wide with fear, the colonel was back against the wall and his eyes were frantically searching for the one responsible for this act.

A maelstrom of noise suddenly rose from the darkness. The sound of chairs' legs shattering and bestial growls were coming from the darkness. The chaotic sound had given the alchemist the feeling of been attacked by a wave of explosions and a wolf pack. A drop of cold sweat was rolling down his back and his breaths were heavy, but slow. Whatever it was, it wasn't human and wasn't the doing of a Coughman.

The storm of disharmonised noises stopped as soon as it started. It only lasted five or ten seconds until it submitted, but only a duet of noises was keeping the colonel on alert: two of the same furious growls. They sounded familiar to the colonel as he recalled the same intimating noise from the warehouse. Did these animals really follow him to the prison?

His cannon pointing at the incoming beasts, Roy was trying his best to keep it steady, but the sudden phenomenon didn't ease him to the very least. The menacing sound was growing stronger as two shades were materializing from the dark facade.

At first, the silhouettes were the shape of two dogs slim as if they didn't eat for a long time. When their snouts came out almost at the same time, Roy felt his stomach making a turn. They hadn't a nose, only an exaggerated large jaw with teeth similar to the crocodile's. Their skin was patched with black and moldy fur; needles and bloody strings were holding the patches together on the beasts' pale skin. Their faces were barely recognizable as a common dog's and two small flesh masses were forming into what the colonel assumed to be their eye sockets as the last remains of their sight. Their mouths watered and saliva was dripping from their unhealthy gums as they watched the colonel. The hunger drove them into this state, or that was the closest rational thing Roy could think of.

Once they revealed themselves and their motivations were clear to Roy, the soldier opened fire on the closest beast. Two bullets hit its target on the back. In pain, it didn't whine like a dog should; the beast's cries were a disturbing tangle of a dog's howl and the distorted screech of a man. The colonel had the feeling of shooting a man, but at the same the beast in front of him.

As an act of vengeance or survival, the second beast lunged himself at the man. The alchemist dodged in time and his assailant hit instead the wall with its forehead first. Roy kept away from the walls, as he could be cornered by the black monstrous dogs. The animal didn't flinch from the pain, unlike its comrade; instead it turned toward its prey with a nasty wound on its forehead as if it was about to attack again.

The alchemist was about to fire, but instead he slipped on something below his boots. He didn't regain balance in time and fell back on the trashed food. The beast saw the opportunity and didn't hesitate to jump on the fallen man. The sudden weight of the beast on his chest made him breathless for a fraction of second and let go of his gun and lantern as a reflex of his fingers to the shock.

From his angle, he could see the beast at an intimating point of view with his lantern only lighting half of its face. Then its primary weapon opened widely. If this creature managed to bite his face it would surely take his head off as well. On the verge of death, his hands were searching for something to stop his attacker. By chance, his palm found something cold and made out of steel. The beast was about to bite its prey's face, but the hunted turned fate to his favour by a swift stab in the monster's head with all the strength he could find. The knife was acting as a lever that, if pulled down, would be the end of him.

The monster's fangs were about five inches from the colonel's face and snapped as it tried to reach its goal. The blood of the creature was running down the colonel's hand and dripped on his uniform's sleeves. As a last resort, he dug deeper the blade into the beast's skull. When the blade was completely penetrated into the dog's head, he could almost say he hit some kind of emptiness in the animal's skull. It was then that the dog's growls stopped. Its jaw released from its relaxed muscles and its head tilted in front. The colonel pushed away the patched-up beast with the knife. By the movement, the knife's blade broke and the beast fell at Roy's side.

He drew a few breaths before he took the revolver and the shined lantern at his feet.

He thought he was saved, but something told him the contrary. The growls of the other animal rose with its wounded body and stood up clumsily. The colonel was about to shoot at the abomination, but the creature made a sound Roy believed to be absent from those monsters' nature.

It wept. It jaws were closed and it was facing the colonel, head still down as if it were ashamed of his intentions. He lowered his weapon slightly and to his surprise the beast didn't attack him when he showed the opportunity. There was no way to know if the monster still had some of its normal form before it became this, but the colonel couldn't let the animal live. Monsters had to be killed for the safety of the people. He raised back his gun, determined. The animal saw his change of mind and even though it was hit, it used its resorted power to charge at the colonel. The man missed his shot and the animal managed to get to its goal.

The numerous teeth pierced through the colonel's pants as if it was butter and seized the limb without any intention to let go of its prey. They're no words to describe the sudden agony of the bite. It was savage, barbaric and could make a man lose consciousness by the wave of pain going in his brain. Roy couldn't stop the scream in his throat as the animal was trying to dig deeper into the leg, shaking its head to severe it. In the painful rage and fear, the colonel's survival instincts kicked in and the hand holding the gun this time fired two rounds into the animal's brain, if it had one. The bullets lodged themselves into the animal's head. The monster let go of its prey and fell on its stomach in a pool of blood.

He was still standing up; by some mysterious force he was still on his good leg with very little balance. The pain continued to go through his head like volts of electricity, scaring his nervous system and his leg muscles. He barely made it to a standing chair and sat under a breath of pain. His body was screaming the constant pain of his leg and he wished for it to stop, but of course the human body was somewhat idiotic when it comes to signal pain or to submit an intruder as the electrical signal continues to warn the brain even after a long period of time.

The wound on his leg was a disaster. The monster didn't go easy on him and the parts of ripped flesh were the proof of this violent act. The bleeding didn't stop and he had to find a way to fix it. He wasn't sure if he would be able to move again, so he decided to remain on the chair. After a few seconds of thought, his only idea was drastic in which people could be even more afraid of him. He bended his back and slowly put his hands on the dripping blood. The contact was painful as the body was telling him to let go with a sharp pain in his skull. He got up, his hands soaked in his blood. His eyes became devoid of sentiments as his mind began to disconnect his brain to forget the moment. With the table still holding on unlike a few of its twins, he began to draw an alchemy circle.

Anyone with a sane soul would say that his activities were devilish and inhuman, but regardless of their opinions he was going to die.

He didn't care.

All he wanted was to live and make the pain stop.

It was all he was asking.

After the circle finished, his eyes were blanked. In this creepy trance, his bloodstained hands took the leg and placed it under the circle. If Roy was conscious of the agony flowing through him at that moment, he would have died by the raw shock. He quickly extended his hands and the tips of his fingers reached the circle. A glowing blue light appeared and bolts of energy were released into the cafeteria. The medical alchemy began. The wound closed by itself, healing by a quick process of cell regenerations. While his eyes didn't blank by the light, a voice screamed behind his mind.

* * *

><p><em>The <em>_sound__ of a cry. _

_The young voice was coming from the back of his mind and behind him. He was holding a knife, a weapon which he wasn't as accustomed to. The enemy jumped on him from a dark corner. He wasn't wearing his gloves at that time and the aggressor only had a knife. He used it against the assailant and the weapon was now in his hand. The blood splattered on the colonel's stomach and mostly on his naked hands._

_The small cry was coming behind him. The small figure was holding a dangerous toy in his small, trembling hands. His knees shaking together as he saw the man approaching him._

''_You never killed a child, __did__ you?''_

_He never did. The child __cornered__ himself; the dangerous toy was left on the ground behind the bloody alchemist. The child trembled as if an earthquake was about to break the world under them. His crimson eyes couldn't stare off the emotionless man with bits of blood on one of his cheeks. The victim fell on the dirt ground before the soldier raised the knife._

_One stab in the shoulder._

''_Remember, all Ishvalans are enemies!''_

_One stab in the arm._

''_If you don't kill them, they will kill you!''_

_One stab in the thorax._

''_They must pay for this war declaration! We will show them who's the superior race of all Amestris!''_

_One stab in the __collarbone._

''_Go soldiers! Go and show them the power of the Army! Alchemists, __move__ out!''_

_One stab in the neck. _

_One stab in the chest._

_One stab in the chest. _

_One stab in the heart. _

_One stab in the lung._

_One stab stopped. One look behind him. Three faces horrified. Too much blood on him. Too many voices in his one head. Too many screams to count for two ears. He forgot to count them. He couldn't take them all__;__ he couldn't remember all of their faces._

_He was a monster._

* * *

><p>His eyes opened up and he was welcomed by a sharp pain in his head, plus cold on his cheek. His heart was palpitating in pain and so was his mind. He blanked out after the alchemy treatment and horrible memories were brought to him like ghosts feeding on him. His body was in shock, unable to move any of his limbs. His eyes weren't humid of tears nor was sweat coming down his forehead. He felt inhuman; at least his body was shaking which somehow relieved him.<p>

It was than he found out he wasn't in the cafeteria anymore. He seemed to somewhere the floor was in stone and cold. He was relieved to know he was out of the cafeteria, but an uneasy feeling made him wonder where he was.

When his body relaxed he demanded to his legs to get up. They did without any problem, but his sight came back as well. His vision was minimal by the small light in the lantern resting on the ground. It was than his chest felt heavy and his head dizzy. Before him was a set of bars, in behind him closed sturdy walls. He felt instantly trapped and knew where he was; in a cell.

He grabbed the bars were the door was camouflaged in and shook them. They didn't budge. He tried again, no success. He was trapped. His body began to shake heavily as a light pain resurfaced on his injured leg.

''No... It's impossible. How did I get here...?'' his words got weak as his eyes saw something glimmering at the door's edge. He crouched and with a bit of effort grabbed an old key. Before he tried to open the door, he checked if he had all his things on him. The map was there, so were his gloves and the revolver. Whoever got him in, wanted him to have everything on him. He felt alienated by his capturer's intentions. Or maybe he was just stupid.

Lantern in hand, he inserted the key and turned it. The door opened by its own with a rusty noise. He stepped out with a doubt of his location. Before him, the light revealed a horrible scene. Behind another set bars, a bloody human's hand was sticking out of the bars as it was trying to reach something to claim back his freedom. The male body was in a bad shape. His body was homed to many closed shots. The head was covered by a leather bag quickly put over his face. However, the most alarming element was the prisoner's clothes. He was wearing the navy uniform. To believe Roy could have been this man, but instead he silently thanked destiny to not share the man's fate. The man had been killed not too long ago; judging by the body's state, he was killed a few minutes ago. So then... Roy armed himself with the revolver. The one who committed this act could still be near.

The colonel advanced forward without making any noise. The corridor went on for what seemed to be an eternity. He walked, not knowing who or what did it and why did it leave him alive? Was it to kill him later? Did it leave the key behind by purpose? He was asking these questions, before he found out more cells with blood coming out from the bars.

He passed by six other cells guarding dead soldiers. The bodies were in the same shape like the first one he witnessed. Their executioner used the same gun to finish them off, as they tried to hide, but this effort was in vain. The executioner did the job and walked away with the bodies behind as a mark of his passage. Roy's stomach had difficultly to resist the urge to throw up uselessly as his eyes saw the terrible condition of some of those bodies. They should have died without pain.

In the corridor's end, a wooden door was standing before him. On its surface, someone had stuck a note with nails. The words were written in big characters, but they were still readable.

''WHY DID SHE KILL 20-45?

NOW, WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!

HIS FRIENDS ARE GOING TO KILL US ALL!

PLEASE SAV...''

The end was covered by dry blood. In the end, the nurse killed the recent patient, probably after she drugged him. His _'friends'_ killed the soldiers? How? How could prisoners have done this? They were either prepared for such a moment or they weren't normal inmates at all. Alchemists, maybe?

His blood turned into ice. The prisoners were executed by Amestrian's alchemists for pure revenge? And when the letter told _'to kill us all'_ was it talking about all the people with in the prison?

He knew Silent Hill was almost an abandoned town, but this sort of information doesn't fall on deaf ears, mostly not when a town is under the jurisdiction of the Army. Maybe it was corrupted? Probably, but there's nothing to believe that. This conclusion leaved a cold shoulder on Roy as he decided to pass through the door with he noted the information in his head.

The next door was heaven. No it didn't have beautiful women in mini-skirts or the Fuhrer's throne waiting for him, but it was the long searched-for radio room.

The equipment didn't seem very active, but the flashing switches from the machines were a sign of their good function. He almost ran to the microphone linked to the equipment and opened the radio. He placed the lantern next to him before putting on the big headphones on his head. He turned, twisted, pressed buttons and switches to find the frequencies. He remembered the number of the frequencies; it was one of the few he needed to remember for urgencies like these.

''Come on... Come on...'' The white noises were beginning to fade away as he could hear the scratching sound of voices. Then, after a small twist the connection was made.

''Central Emergency Line, this is Colonel Roy Mustang. Can you hear me?''

His voice was filled with joy through the mike. He was going to come out of this hell, he was about to be free. He smiled as he waited for his answer which came up.

''_He wasn't there this morning.''_

His face froze. His smile degenerated and his mouth was slightly opened. It was Breda's voice. It was impossible for it to be him; he wasn't in the emergency radio service. He wanted to say something, but he got cut by a weak voice.

''_Did he __call in__ sick?''_

Kate? Who were they talking about? Him? No, he told Riza he will be gone until new orders. Didn't she tell them? Wait, were they on the microphone at the same time? The colonel was disoriented.

''_No. I called him at his house this morning, but no one responded.''_

Time stopped. His body began to shake slightly. It was Riza. She wasn't aware of his mission? But she gave him the letter ten days ago! She was there when he opened it! What's going on?

''_That's not like the colonel to not come at work. It's even weirder __that__ he didn't call to tell us he'll be absent for the day.''_

''_I don't like this at all...''_

The white noise came back to haunt the despairing alchemist. He muttered to himself curses and distressed words as he tried to come back on the frequencies, but something interfered with the signal. The white noise kept ringing in the headphones like a never ending alarm. It was when the white noises vanished and the lights on the machine died down that his heart felt heavy like a rock suspended by silky threads of his hope. His irises were small and his skin paled down, his fingers, now cold, removed the headphones to free his head from the extra weight. His breath now released puffs of white smoke, but he didn't see them. Instead, all his attention was driven to the failed machine.

Rage got hold of his reason and mind, driven him into an unspeakable machine of violence. His hands clenched, he hit the table on multiple times. He grabbed a nearby chair, threw it at one of the smaller machines, breaking it in the process. He roared like a mad man, severed the mike's cable after pulling it toward him. He threw the microphone in front of the machine that gave up on him.

As his rage died down, he supported his body on the table. His eyes reopened as he caught back his breath and widened. Ice crawled on the machines and the walls, covering the room with its frost like a virus infecting the body. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be afraid or he should be confused by the situation. However, he didn't even have the time to decide of his feelings when someone grabbed him from behind.

An arm locked him as he tried to free himself for the assailant. His hands reached the attacker's arm, but he couldn't do anything against him. The assailant was using a military technique of submission which once used; the victim would be unable to free himself from the grasp. The assailant squeezed his arm blocking the breathing system of the colonel. His brain was drained of its oxygen and his vision blurred after a couple of seconds. His strength left him as a few nervous spasms shook through his muscles as a spontaneous reaction to the lack of oxygen. His consciousness blacked and he could feel his body hitting the cold floor. Before he faded, his ears could hear a muffled sound.

The sound of laughter.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	9. The Monsters Who Are Dying by the Smoke

Chapter 9: The Monsters Who Are Dying by the Smoke and the

Mad Man

An ailing body lied on the cold floor, unable to move or to acknowledge his surroundings. His senses were disabled by a strange overwhelming fatigue. His eyes couldn't open, but he could feel someone's presence standing next to him. An innocent, yet uneasy presence at his side. However, when he felt it, the presence vanished and he was left alone with the darkness in his mind.

Roy's eyes silently opened. Unlike the previous times he awoke, his body wasn't aching. The alchemist stood up easily. It was the first time he felt relatively well since his usual awakenings once he entered into the cursed town.

Once on his feet, Roy saw the light of his lantern didn't die down and he could tell his environment and recognized the radio room however it changed for the worst after he got hold of the lantern. The room was covered in ice and the machines were trapped under frozen blocks, broken beyond repair and seemed to have aged in a rapid pace. The light bulbs on the machines had cracked and shattered, their pieces frozen up mid-explosion. All of these elements were pointing at the reappearance of the Frozen Ishval, but something seemed wrong.

His attention was then turned toward the whole room. He remembered the assailant who had knocked him out. He could still be here, but there was no sign of the man. Just who was he? Could it be the same man who trapped him in the cafeteria? He didn't have a chance to have a good look at his aggressor, but Roy doubted it was a monster. The technique used on him was thought up by to many soldiers during the Ishval war. It guarantied the submission of an Ishvalan if used properly and it proved just a moment ago.

Furthermore, the monsters were either too clumsy to do such a complex move, armless like the Coughman or too big when Hightides came to Roy's mind.

He turned behind him to get out by the unfrozen door, but stiffened at what he was looking at it. Words were written on the door and the font of each letter was as big as Roy's fist. The letters were written stiffly with a white chalk, teasing Roy of an useful instrument he could use now.

''NOT ALL MEN CAN **PUNISH**

SOME DIE BY GUILT, SHAME OR **DESPAIR**

THE VERY FEW WHO ENJOY ARE TRAPPED IN THEIR OWN **MADNESS**

**FOR ALL ETERNITY**

**SMOKE** CANNOT PURGE THE **INFIDELS**

BUT **THEY** BELIEVE IT

**THEY BELIEVE ****THEMSELVES ****TO BE THE CHOSEN ONES OF THIS WORLD**

**THE CLEANSERS OF AMESTRIS''**

Some of the words were in bold as if they were trying to pass a message to the alchemist. Somehow, he felt as the message was talking about the soldiers during the Ishval war. Many soldiers believed themselves to be indeed saviors of the country, but why was it referring to the Ishval war? What was the purpose of it?

No... Something was missing. He knew, unconsciously, it wasn't talking about the soldiers. Cleansers... Cleansers... This word was reminding him of something, but what?

When he finished thinking about the message, the back of his head felt lighter when he smelt smoke from the door's gaps. He covered his hand on his nose as the smell became stronger. Then, strange floppy footsteps were made outside the door.

_*CLOP...CLOP...CLICK...CLOP...CLOP...CLICK…*_

The sound muted for a moment as a shadow was casted under the door's crack. The first thoughts of Roy were alarming.

''_Oh no… Another one?''_ His mind screamed when it heard a familiar breathing noise coming from outside.

He believed it was another Hightides in this prison. However the sound was different; instead of being a sound of moving rusty metal, it more sounded like the clacking noise of armor joints. The shadow under the door moved off with its significant sound and faded away. The alchemist wasn't sure if the Hightides was smaller than the previous one he had seen in the Frozen Ishval, but nothing from where he stood could answer his worries. Was he really back in the Frozen Ishval? Must he kill Hightides again or was it another monster? Only one way to find out.

He gripped the cold door's handle and braced himself for the truth lying behind the message. He pushed the door without hesitation and his body was paralyzed on the moment he realized where he was.

He was no longer in Toluca's Prison or in the corridor with the dead soldiers. He was in a vast and endless large frozen room. The floor was made of what Roy could only describe as iced fences and rusty plates of metal. There was a source of dim light hanging from the ceiling which he stood under. It was weak, but it was still welcomed. At least with it, he could see ten or twelve feet in front of him.

His curiosity caught the best of him when he wanted to know the source of those light flames and it was than he understood the terrible mistake of his interest.

The ceiling was non-existent in this room, only a dark starless sky was soaring above him. Chains came down from the black heaven holding a mass of joined bodies. Bones were separated from the flesh as a supporting structure giving it the form of a chandelier. The frightening structure could only be created in the dreams of a deranged maniac. The few bits and parts which weren't just a flesh mass on the surface were portions of faces, hands' backs and a few pair of blank eyes absent of life. The distorted faces were showing pain and fear, anguish and madness. All of their eyes were closed; maybe they didn't want to see what they had become if they were still alive. Their feet were chained up to the dark sky and all of their hands were holding a bowl which a small flame had burned the closest skull and the exposed part of the nearest arms.

''Oh God…'' it was probably the first time he mentioned this name since a long time. The last time he could recall was during the war. At what time and moment, he didn't remember. To believe they were probably made by the crazy alchemist Samuel was sickening Roy enough to make his guts hurt.

Suddenly, the door behind him abruptly closed. He swiftly shifted his head to the door, until his attention was driven to an uncomfortable sound. It sounded as a frog's croak, but heavier. His eyes finally found the source and he wished he didn't look directly at it.

In the chandelier above him, a female head representing sadness was releasing the sound as if she tried to get the man's attention. Her mouth was absent of gums or teeth. However, what strike the most to Roy were her opened eyes. They were black as a void and empty as a dry well.

''She's still alive…'' he whispered to himself.

There was a feeling of powerless and shame driven Roy's to the brink of despair. He wanted to shoot the woman and kill her to ease her pain, but, without knowing why, her empty eyes stopped him to end her pitiful existence. An arm in the lot of limps moved. He could hear the ripping sound of skin, but he was the only one bothered by it as the woman's arm continued until she could point to her left.

She was showing him a direction, but why would she do that? It was by an alarming noise he understood her intentions.

_*CLICK,CLOP,CLOP,CLICK…*_

Hightides was coming toward him and it seemed it was crawling faster than before. He looked back at the woman, but her eyes were already closed and her arm was lifeless. She gave up her last strength for the colonel. Why would she have done that was beyond the alchemist's understanding; the only thing he could do was to follow the woman's direction. He took out his revolver and he ran as quickly as he could toward the direction given by the woman.

The alchemist finally arrived at what he first thought to be a door sealed by the frost. However, thanks to one of the chandelier's fire, he could read a message on it written with white chalk.

''TO DISTURB ONE'S THOUGHTS

SMOKE CANNOT COME WITHOUT FIRE

BUT ICE HALTS YOUR PATH

FOLLOW THE ONE YOU TRUST''

Puzzled by the message, he felt watched. His eyes stared up and this time he saw two fused faces in a single chandelier facing him with a disturbing grin. One was an Amestrian and the other was Ishvalan. Two fingers lifted up from the bowl. The white finger was to a pointing up and the dark one pointed up, but slightly left.

Roy wasn't sure if he was supposed to follow the one he was trusting or the one he had to trust. From the distance, he could hear the menacing footsteps getting closer. He had to make a decision and quick. When he quickly observed the two faces, he saw no different in their expression or on their face. The only difference he could found out quickly was the skin color.

He made his decision and ran toward the direction given to the Amestrian. He wasn't sure of his choice, but he couldn't trust the people who hated him and if the Ishvalan was still conscious of his actions, maybe he wanted the alchemist to die.

His legs were tired of all this running. Even with the chandeliers and his lantern, there were places where he couldn't see anything in front of him and where his eyes were completely blinded by the darkness. The only things keeping him moving were the noises of Hightides.

When he ran after what seemed to be an eternity, he saw a door under one of the fleshy chandeliers with four bright red letters that gave him hope:

_**EXIT**_

* * *

><p>He immediately grabbed the door handle and passed through without a second thought.<p>

When he passed through the door, he felt as if he landed into an unholy and more disturbing place than the one behind him. It was entirely unfrozen and the temperature was almost unbearably hot. The room's walls were bars holding off what appeared to be animals, mostly four-legged animals with white shining eyes. Their white leer was discomfiting Roy and he could have sworn he heard one of them laugh in the bunch. The ceiling was back, but the fleshy chandeliers were there and now they were covering the whole high ceiling. Their appearances were the same, but now their eyes were joining the white leer of the darkness-covered animals. He felt as if he were an animal in a cage like in a zoo.

_*CLICK,CLOP,CLOP,CLOP,CLICK...*_

He abruptly turned toward the noise of Hightides. His mind panicked when he understood the sound was coming from within this room. From a good distance, he could see something standing in front of the bars. And it wasn't Hightides.

Before the bars, the dark figures were squealing and running into each other as they tried to get away from the entity standing before them. However, they were already trapped and stuck like sardines in a fisherman's net. The entity stood there and opened its jaws, which fell like a nutcracker's mouth. The animals panicked even more and then... a breath of black smoke came out of the entity's mouth. The animals choked in the heavy smoke. Their hands came out as if they were searching for someone to help them. To rescue them. It was then that horror struck Roy another time, they were human hands.

Blackened and injured human hands.

When the entity stopped, the animals tried to breathe the fresh hot air of the room, but their pain was accumulating by the remaining smoke of the entity. It jaws shut, before it faced a shaking Roy.

Now revealed and clear of its black miasma, the terrified alchemist could clearly see the entity. It seemed like a four-legged creature which the legs had been replaced by gray arms and one of them being a nightmarish version of an automail mixed with the entity's brown flesh. The body resembled a rusty and bloody armor in the shape of a feline's rib cage. The entity's head was the worst part to look at as it was literally a young human head with its eyes comfortably closed from the nightmare stitched on flesh. Its lower jaw was made out of metal connected to tubes coming from the chest in the rib cage area. The tubes were part of an inner mechanism which pumps were pulling out the black miasma from the creature's chest as if it was draining its agony to suffocate the caged animals.

The black smoke seemed to be the same one surrounding Silent Hill. Could it be that this monster was the source of the black smoke? In other words, if Roy killed this thing, then he could come out! However, killing it had to be the hardest part of the plan.

The monster's head turned toward the man. It was then the alchemist aimed at the monster's head, but the freak's head was protected by all too familiar helmet which briefly stunned Roy at its sight.

''Alphonse...?''

It was impossible for this to be Fullmetal's younger brother. The monster exhibited nothing like Alphonse's behaviours and he doubted the monster to be the younger Elric.

Yet...Something felt awfully familiar from the abomination. He opened fired at the thing's exposed arms. They lodged themselves in the flesh, but it didn't even make the mechanical abomination flinch or pain it. Instead, he made it angry.

As a response from its assault, the monster's jaws dropped down. Having an idea of what was about to come, the colonel tried to move away, but it was too late. A thick black smoke breathed out of the monster's mouth and hit the alchemist. The air around him made him unable to gasp for fresh air as his body panicked from the lack of oxygen. He managed to remain on his legs, but his hands surrounded his throat as if he was trying to stop the smoke coming in.

In the pitch-black air, the creature's jaws closed and started its advance toward the choking man.

The arms of the monster advanced toward the alchemist.

_*CLOP*_ An arm. _*CLOP*_ The second arm. _*CLOP*_ The third arm. _*CLICK*_ The disturbing automail.

The smoke dispelled at the moment the monster arrived near Roy. His eyes widened at the intimating height of the mechanical abomination. He wasn't sure if he imagined what happened next, but it was hard to believe the opposite.

The monster chuckled. It was almost smothered, but his senses captured the childish noise from beneath the helmet.

''Just... what are...'' He didn't even have time to finish. The left arm of the abomination lifted up and hit the man hard.

Roy's body flew into the center of the room. His body ached and he felt his ribs had cracked by the impact of the monster's attack.

From the cages, the human-animals screeched like wild monkeys and snarled at the fight. They were excited, as it had to be the first time they could laugh at someone's else misery other than their own. The colonel knew his revolver couldn't get through the monster's arms and nothing in the room could help him. He felt weak, but the warmth of the room was somewhat comfortable for a place to...

His mind stopped. His face wasn't touching ice and there was not even a sign of frost in this entire room.

_''TO DISTURB ONE'S THOUGHTS_

_SMOKE CANNOT COME WITHOUT FIRE_

_BUT ICE HALTS YOUR PATH''_

It sounded ridiculous and imaginable, but the writings on the door were right. He remembered back when he was chased by Hightides in the Frozen Ishval. The reason he couldn't use his alchemy was because of the ice.

However, there was none in the entire room.

The monster came closer to Roy as his realization might save his life. He replaced his revolver for one of his 'useless' gloves and waited for a good opportunity.

He felt the back of his coat grabbed by a strong grip. The limb lifted the colonel, his body hanging upside down by the gravity. From the helmet's cracks, black puffs of smoke were coming out regularly like a breath's rhythm. When his eyes saw the monster's helmet and the black smoke touching his skin, he grinned weakly and snapped his fingers.

An explosion smashed the monster's head and it let go of Roy before it could have done anything. The monster yelled a distorted child's scream and covered its head with one of its arms. The fall wasn't as painful as he believed it would turn out to be. He quickly rose up. An arm was covering his aching side and he extended the other toward the wailing monster. He chuckled, even before the monstrous, mechanical abomination. He felt powerful again and untouchable like a god.

His eyes caught the monster standing on its arms and letting out a terrifying scream. But the colonel didn't stiffen at the monster's voice. Instead he grinned and snapped again. Another explosion, this time under the monster's belly, ejecting it and fell on the frozen metallic fences near the bars.

''What's wrong? Having problems getting up? You bastard!'' his voice cackled with a disturbing grin. The feeling of power was overwhelming him to the point he couldn't see the fear showed an uncovered eye under a damaged part of the monster's helmet.

''Not so tough anymore, are you?'' His fingers created friction another time and the explosion blew away a part of the monster's chest plate. Beneath it, mess of flesh and small organs pulled up, now dripping down on the floor through the fences' holes. With the wound on its side, it placed one of its hands on the wound and the other in front of it, asking for mercy.

''You really believed I'll spare you monster?'' This time the explosion broke the automail and blasted it to pieces. The monster let out a childish scream and heavy breaths under the familiar helmet.

''You are nothing more than a thing; I will not make the mistake to let you live!'' he screamed before an explosion removed its helmet and broke the metallic jaw.

In this rush of strength, he created explosion after explosion which were destroying bits by bits of the monster's armor and limbs. Even if the monster was crying and yelling its sickened lungs out, the alchemist didn't stop and kept doing his atrocities. The human-animals whimpered at the sight of this violence, while some bellowed like angry dogs. They gripped the bars and shook them, trying to drive the alchemist's attention to them, but he was oblivious to their distraction.

If the monster was in pain, the alchemist was in the best shape he could ever hope for. His heart was racing at a frenetic rate. His arm was swinging left from right, just like it should. His grin was growing into a disturbing smile after each of the monster's cries. He felt great and powerful like anything before. So much that he started to laugh like a mad man at the monster's pain. It was a therapy for the alchemist and he accepted with his distorted grin.

Finally, the monster stopped moving and it screams were all gone. All that remained of the monster was a massacred body with its head blown off and its arms gone. He took a few breaths in his last, weaker laughs. He didn't felt pain or aches from his wounds; he only felt calm and joyful. Unlike the death of Hightides, this abomination's death didn't bring him any grief or sorrow, only maddening joy and strength. He didn't care if this thing looked like Alphonse or sounded like a child, this monster wasn't human. Nothing about it could be human. The child's screams had to come from his imagination, there was no way this thing was human in any sort of way.

It wasn't human.

His consciousness drove his attention toward the bellowing animals. They tried to sound menacing, but try as they might, the alchemist wasn't a bit scared by their feeble attempt. They had to be hundreds to bark at the colonel, even trapped and unable to go through the bars, they teased him.

He gave a dark stare at the bars in front of him; they didn't stop. He began to walk toward them with his gloved hand at his service anytime. They continued, but got weaker as the man was coming closer. Their courage started to leave them and it wasn't just that sight of the wall, it was the three other walls too. It was then he understood the power he had on these monsters. He was like a judge to them and he was about to press on his judgement on these vermin.

Before the bars, the bellows submitted while all the white eyes were staring at the alchemist. They were waiting for his move and they understood when the smiling man lifted his gloved hand on the animals. Just like before the mechanical abomination smoked them, they tried to save their lives before getting blasted by the colonel. His fingers were ready; all he needed to do was to snap.

_All he needed to do was to snap._

_**It was so easy.**_

_It was so simple._

_It was almost in his nature to do so._

_**Come on.**_

_So why...?_

His legs were shaking.

_**Why couldn't he do it?**_

His knees gave in. His stomach was in pain and his head was a fuss. His fingers relaxed their tension as his knees hit the ground.

Why this sudden guilt overwhelmed him? Because there was no glory or pride to take from the undone action and no one could stop him except himself. That's what made them different from the mechanical carcass. The abomination was not human, but them... His heart felt heavy in his chest and it pained him more than any wounds he got since he stepped in Silent Hill. The remorse was so great that he could throw it up in the holes of the floor, if he had something in his stomach.

In the end, he couldn't do it and he remind in this shocked state while the human-animals gathered toward the bars looking at the colonel in an unnatural silence covered by the chandeliers' light.

''I'm sorry...'' it was the only thing he could say to the blackened bodies.

Under the weight of his emotions, his head barely managed to stand up.

Before his eyes, there was a small black hole. He didn't have the time to do anything and a shocking sound made the human-animals howl in a disharmonious cry. The power of the impact made him fall on his back, his eyes voided of emotions and feelings. His body began to cool down and started to numb. There was still something dripping down from his forehead, but he couldn't understand how he was still alive.

Over his eyes, a humanoid figure appeared under the chandeliers' light. Could it be the same person who trapped him in the cafeteria? He couldn't be sure his vision was very foggy, but it was the same hair characteristic and the same clothes he saw last time, so the possibilities were high. However, the colonel could see something new to the man, where his eyes were, two shining lenses were covering the intruder's eyes. Glasses, the intruder was wearing glasses. He tried to call to the intruder, but the man responded with a gun shot in the colonel's heart.

Before he died in the darkness, the human-animals lamented their forgiver's death.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	10. The Only Lead

Chapter 10: The Only Lead

_He felt his body dragged on something cold._

_Unsure__,__ he tried to open his eyes. They were too heavy, he couldn't open them. He was tired from all this insanity, he just wanted to wake up in his bed back in Central, go to work and see his __colleagues__. Speaking to Riza, teasing Fullmetal, bossing the others while doing almost nothing._

_No._

_That statement was wrong._

_He wasn't going to do nothing, he had something big to accomplish. Even, maybe, greater than __being__ the next Fürher. Once the deed __was __done, his mind __would__ be clear from doubts and anxiety. But most importantly, __**he**__ shall be avenged._

_A sob._

_The sound of a weak cry from close-by, in front of him._

_His eyes snapped opened._

_Two big red eyes __were __shining__ on his face. The same eyes from his previous dream._

_And it... was crying? No way, monsters don't cry. It had to be someone else, something else, but not this monster. Anything but this thing!_

_His mind screamed, literally. Voices from the depths of his conscious haunted his thoughts, they were familiar and one in particular made him __realize__the cause __of these screeches. The screams of the agonized Hightides, the __pleas__ of the mechanical abomination, the twisted howls of the demonic dogs, all united. All united in his mind._

_No words could describe this pain. Only two words came out from his mouth, before his scarlet sight faded to black._

_''It hurts...''_

* * *

><p>It was under a lantern's light Roy's eyes snapped open. It took him a moment to realize that he was still alive, which relieved him at first. He remembered clearly his fight against the mechanical abomination, the blackened animals, and the stranger who shot at him.<p>

The stranger.

His head suddenly pained him. He could see the moment before this person pulled the trigger; he remembered the clothes he was wearing and the glasses shining under the fleshy chandeliers' fire. Something was wrong, very, very wrong.

He knew him!

He was the same man in the headquarters before the explosion. Everything was almost clear, but only one detail couldn't be explained. The face of the stranger was distorted and blurred out from his memories. His consciousness was covering the stranger's face. To what end? To hold up to the last shreds of sanity remaining in him or because it was due to the bullet he supposedly got in the head, causing him to forget about this important detail?

Whatever the reason of this slight amnesia, Roy could feel his heart aching when he realize his incapability to remember. Something about this person felt familiar, yet dangerous. Just who was it? _Who was he?_

His head ached more as he tried further to remember the man's face, blinding him from a coming colleague.

''Are you awake, Mustang?''

The voice made him jump. If it wasn't for the lantern's light, he couldn't have seen Samantha standing at his left.

''Samantha? Where are...''

He tried to stand up, but his side paralysed him in his efforts. A hand reached the source of the pain, to feel something soft on his skin. It was then he realized he was in a bed. Samantha must had removed his upper part of the uniform and patched him up with heavy bandages. It didn't discomfort him too much, but the weight of the bandages couldn't go unnoticed.

He looked up, directing his stare on the weakly illuminated woman's face. She looked worse than the last time they met. She had begun to have a small mass of blackened skin under her eyes and her skin was soaked. In fact, she was drenched to the bone. Her skin was paler from what Roy recalled and her uniform seemed to have been assaulted by something with claws.

He immediately suspected the monsters to have done this and mostly the demonic dogs, since they were the only monsters with something resembling claws. She probably jumped into the lake to save herself from the monstrous animals. However, even with this encounter, Samantha always seemed to be a statue as her face wasn't expressing any emotions at all, which began to be suspicious.

''We are in the hospital.'' She talked without any feelings in her voice. ''It was the only safe place.''

Roy suddenly realized something. One, he was in Silent Hill's hospital, the last place in the entire town he wanted to be. If he learned anything from horror films it was this: NEVER go to the hospital, it's always there where the main protagonist meets the worst kind of monsters. Second, _'the only safe place'_? Maybe she meant _'It was the only safe place for me, so I took you along.'' _because Roy didn't feel safe at all. He would have preferred to wake up back in the prison's cell than on a hospital's bed. But, without this building's equipment, he could have been in worse shape.

''To be frank with you Samantha, I don't feel safe enough in a hospital and especially one with some thing with claws.''

She looked at one of the most apparent scratches on her uniform and looked back at the colonel.

''I guess I owe you an apology,'' she told him without moving her stare away from Roy.

''An apology?''

''Yes. When you told me about these _'bizarre creatures_,_'_ I thought you were mad. But... it turns out you were saying the truth.''

Finally! Some good news.

Roy knew that he wasn't insane and didn't imagine all of this. The monsters were real, he sighed out of both relief and concern. It was now a question finally answered, only a few hundred left.

It was good on one hand, but on the other it was terrible news. If the monsters were indeed real, than it meant that they could come out of the town and attack nearby towns and villages. The consequences could be catastrophic. It was now imperative: he had to escape Silent Hill to inform all of this to Central.

But why escape? Why not kill the source right now? The man named Samuel came out of his mind like a bear waking up from hibernation. It was surreal, after his fight against the mechanical abomination he hardly believed it was human, but if he killed this well-hidden, mad alchemist could he end the production of all these monsters? Two choices were in front of him: escaping Silent Hill or killing Samuel.

''Mustang?''

The woman's voice broke the run of his thoughts. He simply raised his head toward Samantha.

''Y-Yes, I accept your apology. My... My thoughts just drift away for a moment.''

''About?''

He wasn't sure if he should divulge his hasty plan, but maybe Samantha could help him. Yes, she might be mad, but she seemed resourceful and strong enough to assist him.

He took a gamble and decided to tell it.

''I was thinking of two possibilities we could take right now.''

''They are?''

''Either we escape from Silent Hill or we find Samuel and kill him.''

''Samuel?'' she asked, almost surprised by the man's declaration. Her emotions changed when a couple of seconds passed by from questioning to joy.

The last time the alchemist could recall her smile was when she introduced herself to the man, but something about that smile didn't fit right. Maybe it was the dim lighting, but Samantha's teeth seemed to be more yellowish. He couldn't tell if he also had that same condition, since he didn't find anything that could reflect his image, but by judging the woman's condition it would make sense.

''I see where you're getting at.'' Her smile was glued to her lips like clown makeup. ''You think by killing Samuel the monsters will die too, right?''

''Exactly.'' He nodded, determined by this idea. ''If we do so, there will be less to worry about and it would be easier to track down and annihilate. It will be faster than escaping and reporting the whole situation to Central. Now that I think about it, I don't even believe Central will believe us if we talk about the monsters.''

''That's true, but I have a question for you, o Colonel.'' She crossed her arms and her smile faded. ''Do you know where Samuel is?''

For his answer, Roy stood mute for a moment. She had a point; he hadn't seen any direct signs of Samuel since he came in Silent Hill. The only connection, and it was debatable, with the mad alchemist was the monsters and they appeared in different, faraway places. There wasn't a place where they were more present than another place and they appeared to be few in numbers. Samuel could be anywhere in the town and Roy didn't know the place by heart...

Except.

''Samantha.''

She continued to glare at him.

''Samuel worked as a soldier before he went mad, correct?'' She nodded. ''Can I presume that you worked with him in the past?''

He hit something in Samantha's mind. When he finished his sentence, the woman looked away slightly and her eyes showed sorrow. Her muscles also tensed at his declaration. It was enough for Roy to understand the woman's answer.

''We did.'' She collected herself back and spoke up. ''We were partners for two years.''

He gave a weak smile at the woman's answer. He was finally getting somewhere with her and not just fragments of answers.

''Do you know a place where he usually goes like a shop or a park?''

He could see his questions were irritating Samantha. She was biting her lower lip from the inside, a sign of discomfort. Roy began to suspect the woman's real relationship with Samuel. She must be thinking of a specific place which he didn't suspect her to be involved in, but it was obvious nothing came to her mind.

''Samantha.'' She stiffened at Roy's voice. ''Whatever happened between you and Samuel isn't my business, you must still have...''

''SHUT UP!''

The woman's yell was predicted by Roy and stopped when she ordered him. The woman was red with embarrassment and anger. She was uncomfortable with listening to the man's speech and cut him off right in the middle of his sentence. She turned her back like an upset child.

''The amusement park. The amphitheatre mostly.'' The tone of her voice was weak as if she was trying not to wake up a sleeping infant.

She looked back at Roy; her eyes were watery, but no tears fell down. It must be hard for Samantha. She was going to help someone who was going to kill the one she loved, yet she was willing do to this sacrifice for the good of the country.

Roy didn't add more on the subject and tried to get up. His sides were still hurting, but not enough to make him stop in his tracks. He took back the lantern, which lit Samantha's back and a bit more of the room he was in. In the light's edge, he saw his belongings and retrieved them in the cold silence. After adjusting his coat's sleeves, he looked at Samantha who was still lightly in shock.

''You got everything? If you want, I can guide you to the amphitheatre, but that's all I can do for you.''

He kept his silence and only nodded, accepting the woman's offer. Before they headed out to the amusement park, he had one last question on his mind.

''Samantha.'' She stopped. ''Before we go, I have one last question.''

She glanced over her shoulder while one of her delicate hands was holding the doorknob.

''How did you manage to get me in the hospital?''

The female soldier slowly turned toward Roy, her hand released its grasp on the door's handle. She seemed suddenly more serious than usual.

''I didn't do anything. You were already in the bed when I found you.''

It was then that something hit him. He looked at the floor and saw dry blood covering the tiles. He was shocked. The blood was making a trail directly toward the bed. When he was on it, he didn't take the time to see the sheets or the bed itself. They were the color of a rusty crimson. Even though he didn't see his skin, also crimson on his arms and such, he couldn't imagine his entire body being covered in blood.

After taking a shaking breath and pushing away the image of him covered in his vital fluid, he looked back at the woman.

''Let's go.''

The woman only nodded and opened the wooden door to walk away. Roy didn't follow her immediately. He quickly glanced at his clothes, no signs of blood. Everything was wrong. He recalled the dream he had with the red-eyed monster. He remembered being dragged by the thing. Maybe, just maybe, this dream wasn't a dream. Nothing made sense, why would a monster have saved his life?

''Mustang.'' From the corridor darkness, he heard Samantha.

He had to go; once all of this was over, perhaps it would make more sense. He advanced into the corridor and followed Samantha from behind as she guided him to the amusement park of the cursed town.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	11. Lakeside Amusement Park

Chapter 11: Lakeside Amusement Park

''Jaws.''

The woman stopped in her tracks, her eyes frowned at the alchemist's words.

''Jaws?'' she questioned.

He forced a smile at the woman's query. He didn't realize that he had just said his thoughts out loud. Probably due to fatigue.

''I was thinking of a name for one of the monsters I had encountered.''

The woman glared at him, uncertain whether to say her remarks or to remain silent.

''Why in the world would you give name to these things? They don't need be identifiable, they are just monsters.''

''They might be monsters, but they could have been human once,'' he replied, even though he was unsure of the credibility of his own words. ''The least I can do is to give them a name.''

''And you gave them names only because they were humans?''

''Not just because they look human; I have encountered two dogs that turned into monsters.''

''And you even give names to monsters who weren't even human at the beginning? You're too sentimental.''

He remained silent as he recalled the last standing dog in the prison. He remembered its weeping and its body position, asking forgiveness and pity for the alchemist. Killing it was a hard decision, but it was for the best for him and the beast. If the dog was still alive, it would suffer more. It was a victim as much as the humanoid monster.

''You can say that animals might be more recognizable than humans sometimes.''

''I guess you're right on that point.'' She chuckled softly after her sentence. Somehow, the tiny laugh of the woman made Roy uneasy.

They finally arrived in front of the amusement park. The entrance was overlooked by an old, blue welcome sign with the head of a smiling clown in the upper right. Taking most of the sign's space was the name, all lettered in an odd shade of yellow, of the amusement park:

_''Lakeside Amusement Park''_

The title didn't lie either, the park was indeed next to the lake. Roy guessed it was easy for the park's owner to find an adequate name.

While Roy was checking the entrance, he heard the sound of chains. Believing it was a monster he was on alert, but his cautious state turned off when he saw the female soldier holding a long rusty chain from the entrance's gate.

''Someone opened the lock...'' She said to the colonel as if he would understand the meaning of her words, which he did.

The park was closed and someone broke in. His suspicions on Samuel were getting stronger and even more when he got closer to the place where Samantha was standing and found the opened lock on the ground. If it had been the work of any monsters he had seen so far, the lock would be destroyed or the gates would be on the cement but no. Someone inserted the key and released the lock; it had to be a human.

''Samuel must be somewhere in the park,'' he stated as he opened the metallic gate and ventured in with Samantha at his side.

If it wasn't for the rain and the fog, the amusement park would be a decent looking place. The flashing colors of the stands were now washed away by the rain and showed the neglect of any form of repairs on them. Some of the light bulbs in the round street lanterns were shattered, probably by children who threw rocks to practice their dexterity. The attractions also shared a similar fate with the stands. Broke down, rusty and the sign with a mascot drawn somewhere on it was covered by dirt and dampened by the rain. Some had age better than others, but, overall, the attractions had met their end.

''How long the amusement park was shut down?'' he asked his indifferent guide.

''About a year ago,'' she told him as they passed near a haunted house attraction. ''The owner was found guilty of murder.''

Roy was stunned by Samantha's declaration. Almost surreal to imagine, the owner of a place that supposed to bring happiness was a murder.

''Did he kill children?'' It was reasonable question; after all it was the owner of an amusement park, the prime target would be children.

''No,'' she answered without turning her back to the alchemist. ''He drowned fifteen women and almost sixteen, if it wasn't for Samuel.''

He quietly gulped at the image of a drowned woman, which reminded him of a similar case he worked on with Riza.

''The owner would charm his victim, coercing her to secretly cheat on her husband and gave her gifts to soften her, lowering her guard. When she's under his spell, it's already too late for her to run away. The owner dragged his victim to the nearby shore and submerged the woman's head into the water until she died.''

''You seem to know much about it; you worked on the case?''

She stopped in her walk. Roy halted too and waited for the female soldier to quench his curiosity. They stopped for a couple of seconds, until she finally let out the words agitating on her tongue.

''Not directly.'' On those words, she made her way without adding more to the subject.

Roy had a feeling on the meaning of this sentence, but the alchemist kept his mouth shut.

In the silence accompanying them, they arrived at the amphitheatre's entrance. Roy couldn't see much of the theatre, except its imposing shadow from up the hill. While he was looking at the shadow, the woman in front of him turned and began to walk away from the colonel.

''You're going?'' he asked as she continued calmly.

''I did my job. Kill Samuel, while I'll check for a way out,'' she told him loudly while marching on.

''Samantha!''

She stopped. The only thing he could see from the woman was her weak shade within the heavy fog. He could see the woman's shadow slowly spinning toward the man, signalling him he got her attention.

''Thank you.''

The woman's shadow stood there for a moment. Maybe she was glaring at him or thinking of something to say, but he would never know what she was truthfully doing under the fog veil. The only thing he was sure of was the woman walking away quietly.

The fog gave Roy some challenge when he was stepping up the small rock stairs. They were so flat and small, that he feared he would miss one and roll down to the amphitheatre's entrance.

As he walked up, his mind thought of names for the mechanical abomination. He wasn't sure if the thing would deserve to have a name, but he had to remind to himself that it had been human before. The name 'Alphonse' was an option, due to the monster's armor, but didn't work at the end for the simplest of reasons. The name 'Alphonse' already belonged to someone he knew, alive and safe from the town's curse. The second one was 'Cleanser'. One of the bold words written on the door when he woke up in his last encounter in the Frozen World. It stuck to the monster when he recalled the smoke the monster breathed out on the alchemist, as it seemed to use it on the blackened-humans to 'purify' them. Cleanser it was then.

At the amphitheatre's feet, he stepped on the stage and stopped. On the stage, protected by the rain, was an enormous drawn alchemy circle. Whoever had drawn it used chalk and probably a large quantity of it. From his perspective, Roy couldn't figure out the circle's properties. The symbols written on it were unknown to him and nothing seemed like a commonly used circle. He didn't even dare to activate it. If the circle was the main source of transforming a human into a monster, he didn't want to become part of Samuel's army.

As he got closer to the circle, without entering in it, he felt his body aching, mostly his head. The circle was unfamiliar to him, but he felt something terribly wrong with it. His body was trying to get away from the circle and his mind anticipated something awful would happen if he ever activate the transmutation. As he tried to ignore the dull pain, he heard a noise from behind.

He had the time to turn to see the source, but instead got pushed into the circle. He didn't even have the chance to regain his balance when the circle's lines began shining in a blue light. Under him, the ground gave in and fell. The fall didn't last long, but he had fallen about five or so meters from his initial height. This time, he didn't feel pain, only a dull sensation in his side.

Still very conscious, he got up as he was relieved to see he was alright. He looked up to finally see the face of Samuel or more his silhouette. The mad alchemist was veiled by the fog, but he could see a pair of shining lenses on where his eyes should be. Roy felt he was in the presence of someone he knows and his feeling was right. It had to be the same man in the room where he killed the Cleanser and in one of his last dreams.

Roy took out his revolver and shot the mad alchemist twice without hesitation. The first bullet missed, but the second hit him in the chest. The alchemist pushed back at the pain and got out of Roy's sight. There was a moment of silence, until he heard someone falling on the concrete.

He smiled. He finally did it. He killed the one who tortured so many people in the town. A wave of satisfaction urged through him and he sighed out of relief and joy.

''It's over... It's finally over...'' he said as he smiled to a point where he could have sworn his jaw broke.

When he looked up to find a way out of this hole, his eyes caught a standing figure. He froze in place; his stare couldn't drive away what he was looking at. Joy was replaced by despair and relief changed to uncertainty. It was a shadow with shining white lenses.

It's impossible.

No human could have gotten up so easily after being shot in the chest. The shadow remained silent and stood tall, giving the attitude of a tyrant.

He couldn't understand.

While his mind was trying to find an explanation for all this insanity, his eyes warned him of another danger. From the edges of the hole, two small masses advanced to the border each at the side of the shadow. Their growls gave their identity and Roy slowly stepped back as he realized how much trouble he was in.

The shadow's head swiftly moved to his left. At the signal, the two smaller shadows jumped down in the hole and landed about three meters away from Roy.

The colonel thought he was dreaming, a bad dream replayed before his eyes, but no. Even if he wanted to wake up, the nightmare would still live. These growls were the same as the ones in the prison, but he was sure he killed these animals.

The Jaws were back, but they changed for the worse.

The monstrous dogs had a bigger jaw. The jaw's muscles had been torn apart to extend the mouth to their head's end. Their fur had rotted and spots on their skin were now exposing the beasts' muscles. Horrifying changes now distinguished the Jaws apart.

The one on his left was the bigger of the two. It jaw was always opened and some kind of substance was drooling down its mouth. It was just a feeling, but Roy had the sentiment that this beast's bite could inflict more than just pain.

The smaller of the two was immensely shaking. Its head twitched like a man who lost his last shreds of sanity. If the head wasn't moving enough, the feet of the beast couldn't stay in place for a single second, always stepping on the same spot. Its mouth opened and closed constantly making the sound of human's teeth chattering all the time.

It was either other Jaws or the same ones back in the prison which came back to life.

If they were the same... then they would be more than vengeful on the man.

The colonel pointed his revolver at the biggest Jaws. He tried to shot the drooling Jaws, but something caught the arm holding the weapon. He turned his head, eyes wide, and saw the moving head of the smallest Jaws under his arm, biting his limb. Strangely enough, he couldn't feel his arm anymore. His hand released the weapon, powerless to hold it any longer. He couldn't tell if the beast broke his arm, but he felt something going through him. The tiniest Jaws was poisonous.

His eyes began to glaze, even if he tried to fight back, his skull would feel heavier. His body relaxed and he fell on his knees with the dog still holding on its prey. His sight focused in and out as he saw the biggest Jaws approaching him.

His body might be relaxed and calmed, but his inner thoughts were screaming to the colonel to fight back. A bite from the bigger Jaws would be the end of him. He didn't want to die. If he was going to die there, than all he accomplished would go to waste.

His revenge would be never completed and his dream will be nothing more than pretty words.

His team will disband. And what about Riza?

She will never live through this. She might... die.

He clutched his teeth and ordered his bitten arm to move. He felt it shaking. The biggest Jaws was a meter away from the weakened colonel. He demanded it to move. He felt his strength coming back. The bigger Jaws widely opened his jaw. A few droplets of the Jaws' saliva flew in the air, landing on the colonel's face.

He felt like his face had been melted. If a few drops would make so much pain, the bite will surely kill him on the spot.

The pain awoke his full strength. The wounded arm moved and placed it in front of the Jaws' mouth. The bigger Jaws closed its trap.

It closed on its partner.

The smallest Jaws painfully howled in the mixture of a dog's whines and a human's scream, but this time the undefinable scream had the tone of a woman, paining Roy's ears.

The biggest Jaws took several steps back as it tried to open its massive mouth to free its partner's body, but to no avail. The voracious beast slowly began to calm down, intoxicating itself with the trapped corpse's poison. It only lasted a few seconds to witness the beast slowing down.

It was his chance.

He found the nearest rock caused by the alchemy reaction which he could hold in one hand. It was going to be messy, but he wanted to be sure of the Jaws' death.

When the sole surviving demonic dog was lying on the rocky floor, the colonel got up and armed himself with the stone he collected it under the grasp of his uninjured arm. He checked over the edge to see if the shadow was still there.

The suspected Samuel was gone. At least he wouldn't be worried about being shot in the back while taking out the last Jaws.

As he approached the half-conscious beast, the colonel held the rock tighter. The sturdy edges cut deep in his palm. The pain wasn't strong enough to bother him; his attention was focused on the struggling bigger Jaws.

At the dog's feet, he readied his arm for the necessary strength to kill the beast. He aimed at the animal's head and began the violence.

With the solid element in his hand, he repeatedly punched the monster's head. Due to the close range of his attacks, blood splattered on him and tiny spots innocently hit his face.

He continued to massacre the animal ferociously, but without letting a sound out of his mouth. The colonel held his breath every time he finished the strike and looked at the animal with a stare absent of feelings.

The Jaws took several blows to the head before falling on the ground, dead, with its partner still stuck between the rows of bloody dripping teeth.

The mess he left the bodies in was without ceremonials or forgiveness. The alchemist couldn't feel the least bit of sadness or grief in this violent act. They were no longer animals, no longer salvageable. He remembered his last encounter with them and the poor dog bowing his head as if it was asking for forgiveness.

None of that happened.

They were nothing but mere animals; they didn't have any souls or any morals. They were just animals.

Monsters.

His head began to hurt. His vision focused in and out again. His muscles started to feel weak and almost rubbery.

_''No way... I'm not... going to fall... again.''_ He ordered to his body, but he had difficulty even forcing himself to remain upright.

He finally hit the ground. His body ached from the constant pain between his temples. Maybe he used his last effort on beating down the biggest Jaws or he was just tired from fighting the nightmarish monsters of Samuel. Whatever was happening to him, it was breaking him to pieces and he couldn't tell how long he'd be able to tell the realities apart once he's out of the town.

Strangely enough, his consciousness was still aware of his environment. The cold rocks under him felt damp, colder. The sound of crackling ice haunted his ears and his body solidified under him. The possibility to fight back against the cold was a big, fat zero. The energy in his body was emptied by the sudden fatigue and the surprising cold.

His consciousness finally started to let him down. He didn't want to lose his senses, not when he was fighting to remain aware for so long.

It was then he heard footsteps. Ice broke under them as they approached him. It was Samuel.

He knew it was Samuel.

The sound stopped very close to him. The man standing next to him wasn't speaking to him or doing anything at all. Instead, he heard a laugh.

Not mad.

Not sad.

Without rage.

But with joy.

The tone of the voice made his mind lighten. All the faces of the stranger got clearer. The shadows and the distortions gone from his memories. The shock was worse than any other physical wounds he had to endure. It was swift, caught him off guard and unprepared for it.

Like unplugging a singing radio, his consciousness cut short on itself.

* * *

><p><strong>Special thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	12. Death's Sentence

Chapter 12: Death's Sentence

_''Can you confirm the body?''_

_''It's him...''_

_''We have conformation on the body__;_ _it's Brigadier Maes Hughes.''_

_The two unknown men surround__ing_ _his best friend returned the blanket on its head. They__ were examining__ the crime scene, searching for clues directing to the brigadier's killer, but to no avail. The killer was gone, vanished, disappeared in the air. All he left behind him was a lifeless corpse in a telephone __box_ _in the middle of an empty park._

_The body, his late friend, had been shot two times. One pierced through his shoulder. Supposedly, he got wounded back in the __Headquarters__. A witness saw him running out the building and never came back. The last one, located in his chest, caused a slow and agonizing death. His glasses were shattered, veiling his still opened eyes. The first response had the decency to cover the body with a blanket. The __size_ _of it, however, wasn't big enough to cover the pool of blood under the victim._

_''Colonel.''_

_It was his left-hand. She came when she heard the news, maybe hearing he was there too._

_''Colonel, it would be better if we leave.''_

_Typical from her, but true. In a deadly silence, he began to make the first steps and stopped at the third one. He looked back and his eyes __widened__, his heart squeezed._

_Everyone acted as if nothing happened, but something did __happen__. The two investigators were still roaming the crime scene, Riza kept walking__,_ _and the rest of the soldiers were still in their duties. Except him, the only one who stopped and watched, terrorized, the butchered body slowly dragging toward him._

_Without the blanket, he could see the damage caused by the bullet in his chest. The navy blue of his uniform turned brown at the extremities of the splatter as the middle remained bright scarlet. He walked normally, as the deep injury in his chest was nothing but a scratch. The colonel couldn't move or breath__e__. His eyes locked on the coming red man who smiled at Roy's sight._

_''__**YoU beTRayeD me. WHy dIDn't yOu dO aNYthInG? Roy... Roy...**__''_

_''Colonel?''_

_A hand reached his shoulder__;_ _he jumped out of __fright__. Riza __stood_ _for a moment, before she realized her eyes looked at a shaking Roy. The man stared at the woman, before turning back his attention to the walking body behind him. He was back in the cabin._

_Did he just __imagine_ _it?_

_''Something the matter, sir?''_

_She remained calm as she'__d_ _always been. He should do the same. He rubbed his eyes and let out a troubled sigh._

_''Nothing, Lieutenant. Let's just...''_

_When his eyes opened, the world behind his lieutenant turned black. In this sudden shadow, two round shining eyes floated at least five feet above the woman's head. He felt his body going numb by the horror he witnessed and when he tried to warn his left-hand of the menace, it was already too late._

_The last thing he knew was the body of his left-hand on the soil, lifeless._

* * *

><p>He awoke sharply at the nightmare's end. When air should fill up his lungs, water instead entered by his mouth and nostrils. Caught by surprise, his head lifted up and reached the fresh oxygen floating above him.<p>

In the tenebrosity surrounding him, Roy lifted his body as he coughed out violently, vomiting the liquid out of his system. It was unpleasant, at best.

When his stomach was empty, he blindly put his hand against a nearby wall to support him.

The dream he dreamt made him dizzy and unnaturally weak. The ghost of his former friend and the death of his lieutenant by the red-eyed monster stressed him to the point of feeling nauseated when he recalled the nightmare. He tried to push away the images, but they came back stronger than last time.

When he managed to minimize his tremblings, he recalled the stranger's voice.

The same voice. The same tone. Everything was pointing at one very familiar individual.

''Impossible.'' He denied as he shook his head. ''He's dead. I saw his body. He can't be alive!''

His last sentence had a violent tone to it. As much he didn't accept this fact, a part of him wanted to believe he was alive. The good times they had, the mutual trust they shared, the promise they made in Ishval.

All gone in a single night.

By a simple bullet in the heart.

Speaking of heart, the colonel couldn't shake off the image of Riza's body. The red-eyed monster was, once again, back in his dream. This time however, the monster killed someone. He thought so far that the monster was some sort of protector, but in the end it wasn't. It was just like the others, a monster which he had to kill.

He checked in his coat's pockets. Everything was soaked. The map was ruined and his gloves would take a long time before he could use them again. His gun, bizarrely, was back on his belt and the lantern was full of oil to be used. He could use it as he wished, if it wasn't for the fact that he didn't have anything to light the object. He threw away his now useless map in the water and began to walk aimlessly in the darkness.

The water, at knee-height, demanded more energy from the colonel. Nothing could tell if he was going in the right direction or not. Disoriented, he could only rely on his Lady Luck, who assuredly let him down.

He wondered off with the last resort of his strength. Even if his throat wasn't dry or his stomach wasn't requesting food, he couldn't image how long he hadn't eaten or drunk properly. By as little time indication he had, he could have been in Silent Hill for days, even a week.

Nothing made sense anymore.

Nothing at all.

He heard the sound of a splash. He wasn't sure, but by the sound of the impact it was something relatively heavy. He lifted his head and saw a weak light.

Finally, some light at the tunnel's end!

He reached the light's zone and saw a set of rocky stairs going to a metallic platform out of the water. Without a second of hesitation, he stepped on the first steps, freeing his legs from the cold water. He climbed up the last steps when he looked at the light's source. His eyes looked away from the light.

It was a fleshy chandelier.

With his sight avoiding the macabre chandelier, he walked on the platform searching for a door, an exit, anything which would take him out of this tunnel. At the light's edge, a rusty metallic door dimly shined. As they seemed to be no other way out, he advanced toward the door and opened it in a desperate silence.

Outside , he saw the chandeliers hanging by the chain and frost covering everything around him.

He was back in the Frost World.

With the knowledge he had of this world's danger, he took out the revolver and observed around him.

As his eyes looked around, he saw something was out of place. The ice, the floor turned into fences and metallic patches were all there, but the rest remained him of the amusement park. If he recalled right, the last times he found himself in the Frost World he was in places which didn't have much resemblance to the place which he lost consciousness.

This time, it was some sort of the counterpart of Lakeside Amusement Park.

He walked in the frozen park as he stayed close to the weak light given by the chained fleshy chandeliers. He didn't have any idea where to go. This part of the Frozen World was unlike his previous visit in the cold realm. He wasn't as scared as his last visits and there was nothing chasing him or trying to kill him.

No monsters, no stranger and no danger.

It was too good to be true.

Under a chandelier's light, he stopped next of a carousel ride and looked around him to find something to give him information to get out of the Frozen World. Usually in parks, there were maps scattered around to give indications to the rides and attractions. But there were none.

''HELP!''

A voice rose from the darkness and his senses were already on alert. The voice was familiar and his heart was suddenly squeezed by worries.

''Samantha!''

He ran through the park's streets and followed the ongoing screams. They were piercing and strong. He followed the female's voice, until he was in front of a candy shop with two fleshy chandeliers floating above it. The screams were coming from there.

He busted in. In the blinding darkness, he couldn't see anything around him and had to bet on not colliding with a stand or a counter. Thankfully, he didn't.

When he arrived at the back of the store or what he assumed, he heard cries of struggles and screams. Whatever monster was fighting against Samantha, it was blending well with the shadows.

It was then the screams and struggles faded. He feared the worst, but he could hear faint breaths coming from the woman's mouth. The assailant stopped his attacks and he turned its head toward the colonel. The movement of two red, round, shining eyes gave away the monster's position.

His legs locked up. The determination to shoot the monster was replaced by terror. His worries were right, this red-eyed monster was real and it was no longer in his dream. The pair of crimson eyes shined floated higher, demonstrating the monster's possible height.

It was as tall as he remembered in his dreams and more menacing than he would remember. He knew this thing could kill him in one blow, just like it did to Riza.

He shakily pointed his weapon at the monster. Maybe this red-eyed creature could see in the dark, since its glowing eyes moved closer to the colonel. He didn't want to run away. If he did, Samantha would die and she was the only other human in this accursed place. Her death would mean his loneliness and the end of his sanity.

A loud bang echoed through the store.

Roy didn't press the trigger. It came closer than he expected.

The monster roared and its eyes disappeared. The screams of Samantha soon followed and began to fade away.

''Let me go! Let me go!''

It caught Samantha and kidnapped her. He followed the screams through the darkness. It was a miracle that he didn't run into a wall and he used this advantage to follow the running monster. In the shadows, he used his free hand to guide him. When his fingers didn't fell any solid material, he turned and continued this until it abruptly stopped.

His luck ran out as he hit a metal door. He fell on the ground and quickly got up. Samantha's screams were coming from behind the door, he had to open it and save her.

On the other side, the screams stopped.

The darkness was gone.

The cold vanished.

The red-eyed monster was missing.

He was shocked, not by horror or by anger, but by confusion.

He was in his bureau in Central.

''How did I...?''

He walked in the middle of the room, stepping in the escaped sunlight from one of his window. It was also silent, very quiet. He felt insecure?

Was he dreaming all of this?

A sharp ringing sound made him jump. A black phone sang its song as it waited patiently for someone to answer. He got closer and grabbed the handle, slowly putting the receiver against his ear.

''Hello?''

_''Hi.''_

Roy was caught off-guard. Without removing the phone's receiver from his head, he moved his eyes and looked at the voice's source.

''Who are you?'' he asked the unfamiliar whispering voice.

_''Why should I tell you? Are you a human?''_

''I am; I'm not a monster.''

The voice on the other side got silent. The soldier believed the whispering man had hung up, but a breathing noise, resembling a sigh, was coming out of the phone.

_''Did you s__ee_ _Samantha?''_

''I did.''

_''Liar.''_

The phone emitted a beeping sound. The line cut and he felt something cold behind him.

He let go of the phone and turned on his heels.

He had to be hallucinating. There was no way what he was looking at was real.

In front of him was a large room dimly lit by a few fleshy chandeliers. From what he could make out, the room was flooded. The water concealed a half-submerged catwalk; only the rails were standing out of the freezing water. When he looked behind him, the bureau was gone and his feet were buried by the liquid before he even realized it.

His mind was a mess. His senses hazed his thoughts, nothing could make any relevant explanations and logic would never tell how this sudden change of environment happened. He was close to losing it. His body was shaking and his ideas were scattered in his brain.

Where was he?

Who was doing all this?

What really were the monsters?

Who made the monsters?

Was Samantha really there when he saw the red-eyed monster?

How long was he in Silent Hill?

Why was he there again?

Was he dreaming?

Was it all real?

How did all of this happen?

Why was this happening to him?

Why were the dreams tormenting him?

If he died, would he awake?

Would he suffer more if he continues?

What was the real face of the red-eyed monster; did he really want to know?

As much he tried to keep a minimal of calm, his whole body kept shaking. The simple breaths he drew were challenges. His stomach was squeezed by the anxiety he suffered. His legs felt like rubber, but barely managed to hold him.

As his body and mind fell ill, something caught him.

His irises shrieked in fear and they looked down, at his side. A hand salvaged itself from the icy water and grasped the first thing it found. The hand barely had flesh on it; only the skin and the bones were making the limb.

At the sight of this decayed five-fingered limb holding his ankle, he screamed and kicked off the hand.

He ran forward without looking back at the creeping hand returning into the water.

After a mile, his feet couldn't carry him anymore. His body was sore and his sides hurt even more than when he woke up in the hospital. His brain was requesting rest and sleep; he was tired. He held on a handle and tried to reclaim some of his sanity and calm.

The horizon was obscured by the darkness, there was nothing telling him where the exit was or if there was even one. Instead, there was only blackness.

A noise broke through the darkness; the sound of water splashes and a weight hit the catwalk, right behind him. He wasn't quick enough; the fatigue made his body slow and his reflexes lacked and this _thing_ lacerated the bottom part of the unwounded leg.

The pain was minor, nothing to worry about compared to what he had suffered thus far.

He turned at his quicker assailant and witnessed another twisted creature from the town's bowels.

It had the height of a big dog; its body was lying down and it used its arms to lift its upper body. This manner to advance freakishly reminded him of Hightides. Its legs were tangled in blue, dirt stained clothes and chains trapped the thing's legs forcing, it to drag on the floor. The thing's long, blond hair was drenched, covering the creature's face. However, it wasn't what made him paralysed by fear; it was the monster's body.

When the monster attacked him, he jerked back and had a clear view of the monster. The body of this thing was too close to that of a woman. Even with the hair covering most of her naked upper body, he could see breasts' edges and a beautiful mouth with lustful lips, moans creeping out from its mouth while weak arms were trying to claw the heavy body toward Roy.

_''You got to be...''_ his thoughts faded as he saw the monster crawling faster toward him.

He shot the female monster in the back. Instead of crying in pain, it moaned. A sensual and tempting moan. The one which a healthy and beautiful woman would let out during sex, while she's completely drunk by the touching sensation of her partner.

It was a sick joke. A disgusting, repulsing joke.

He wanted to kill it as fast as he could, to subsume the creature's moans.

He fired again, directly hitting the head. The monster moaned again, however her face submerged. She convulsed; bubbles floated near her face. Until her body shook for one last time and died out.

He felt as if he could breathe again. The death of this monster felt disturbingly good, refreshing. Even though he wasn't expressing his satisfaction physically, his mind felt somehow balanced, reorganized.

His chest hurt. Something came out of his mouth. His eyes grew larger. His head moved down. His energy left him. He didn't feel much after this pain. Without his help, he was dragged away into the darkness. His senses let him down and his sight only visualized darkness; his hearing provided a dull sound.

He didn't fight back.

How could he?

No one can fight back Death.

* * *

><p><strong>Special thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	13. The Monster Who Wished to be Human

Chapter 13: The Monster Who Wished to be Human

His sight blurred in and out, from darkness to light.

He tried to move his head, his legs, his arms, anything! Nothing worked. His body seemed dead, but his mind acknowledged his surroundings; his senses felt the cold, heard his clothes ruffling on the frozen steel, a tainted taste lingered on his tongue and he smelt the heavy frozen air.

It seemed an eternity before whatever was dragging him stopped and threw him on a cold floor. A loud sound of a door shutting echoed through the area and back came the silence.

Unable to move, he believed he was indeed dead, so why did he feel alive at the same time? He could feel his heartbeat pumping within his chest, his eyes could move without much problem, but he couldn't get up or talk.

He wondered for a moment, should he stay there or stand up? Unknowing of his placement, Roy didn't care where he was anymore. As he accepted before, nothing made sense anymore. He had to cleanse his mind of any rational thoughts; they only drove him deeper into a certain break down.

_Just roll with it_, as Jean would say.

He felt his fingers jerk on their own and, by his will, his hand clinched. He felt a part of his strength coming back, rushing through his body ending at the end of his fingertips. His arms managed to support his upper body until his legs got him up.

As his eyes watched the demented scenery, he let out a troubled sigh. He was back in the Frozen Ishval. The place changed since the last time he entered this world. The temperature was still under zero, but the lighting of this place had gone from a dark blue to a deep crimson as if the ice were made out of blood.

A cold sensation crawled under his skin as he folded his arms together to keep a bit of heat.

_''Why am I here again?''_

He glanced over his shoulder to see the door he went through. The red ice sealed the only exit available for the colonel and a carved message was written on the frozen surface.

**''Trapped under the duty**

**They grew like a plague**

**Ravaging the body and the mind**

**They gnawed on the feeble walls before them**

**They know**

**But we do not**

**As our eyes**

**Are blinded by ignorance''**

As Roy read the message, he could see that whoever wrote the message was a different person from the previous carved messages. The letters were written carefully and delicately. The person wasn't in a hurry when he wrote it down.

In a scanty chance he would find an exit, the alchemist walked between the ruined houses of stone.

He had walk for a good ten minutes into the fake Ishval. Nothing happened, not even an encounter with a monster.

_''Am I even going somewhere?''_ he thought to himself as the world was empty of other life.

He wandered aimlessly, until he arrived in a familiar area. The central area where he trapped Hightides and, to his surprise, it was still there. The corpse of the big monster was still lying down and lifeless in the same condition than he remembered. The hooks were still restraining the body as some kind of blood plague surrounded the hooked areas. A grieving feeling came back in Roy's chest. As he continued to stare at the numb body, he gradually felt that he was being watched by someone or rather something.

When the uneasy feeling was near to unbearable, he turned on his heels. His eyes scanned through the area, but there was nobody. He began to feel paranoid.

''Keep it together, Roy, just keep it...'' he encouraged himself as his closed eyes looked down and open to see something under his feet.

Over the thick red ice, the frightened colonel just had the time to move away from the emerging monster below him. It was the same female monster that he killed before he was brought here.

As she clawed her way out of her hole, she was gracefully moaning and her tongue licking her lips. She must have swim under the red ice; her body was soaked.

''No!''

The colonel opened fire on the female creature and she violently died in convulsions while she moaned uncontrollably until her death.

The heart of the colonel raced in his chest and his shoulders were tense with the wild fear rampaging in his mind. As he took a couple of steps back, the semi-submerged body of the female monster was abruptly pulled back underwater by something. From the hole made by the creature, water spouted out and red water came out violently.

Whatever was eating her, Roy didn't want to find out and ran for his life, still shaking from the creature's attack.

His legs stopped in their mechanical movement in an alley between two houses. He sat there as he tried to return to a calm state of mind. His breaths were shaky and he could only think of the monster that ate the female creature.

This world was completely illogical, even if he tried to accept everything he was looking at he couldn't deny that this red Ishval was trying to kill him. He couldn't kill whatever was underwater and he felt desperate as he looked at his few remaining ammo in his revolver. Only four bullets left in his magazine. He could always avoid confrontation, but what if the fights were inescapable? He couldn't run away from the female creatures; they could swim and were strong enough to break through the thick ice over them.

''I must find a solution...'' he told his despairing self.

As he tried to think of a way out, his head began to hurt and he felt overwhelmed by vertigo. He clenched his teeth as he tried to stop the abnormal feeling. When it passed, something was rolling down from his forehead to his cheek. He put his hand to the strange sensation and removed it to see what remained on it.

It was blood. His blood.

''Oh no, nononono. It can't be, I didn't even get...''

As he denied the fact on his head, he felt the headache growing stronger as he struggled to stay conscious. He pressed his hand against the mysterious wound to coagulate it.

As he stood still, his vision faded in and out between the red wall before him and a dark room. The transitions were slow, but as the pain found a high point the struggles between the images stopped at the dark room.

At first, there was no light, nothing to indicate what this place was. It was only then that a light came out from a small rectangular window in the upper part of the room. The light was strong and Roy could see the ray coming out of the window to illuminate the floor.

A shade was sitting on a bench, his face covered in his hands. A muffled sound was coming out from the stranger's mouth. From the noise, Roy could say the man was sobbing.

The pain diminished and the colonel removed his bloody hand from the wound. It seemed to have stopped flowing. He lied there for a moment, not sure what to do. The sobbing man could be a trap, but he appeared to be in a 'normal' emotional depression and not exaggerated like the monsters were constantly trapped in. He got up and advanced toward the crying man.

''Why are you crying?'' he asked the sobbing stranger.

The cries stopped as they were replaced by a few quick gasps. Under the sunlight, the sad man's head moved up to see the colonel standing before him. His face was shadowed by the light.

''I got a letter.'' The stranger began. ''They needed me in Ishval. I thought it was my moment to shine, but...''

The hands came back on the man's face as he continued to tell his tale.

''I never shined. They gave me worthless medals and a disgraceful honorable name.''

He started to cry once more.

''They are burdens. Decoration and respect shouldn't ever be given to murders. Never, never, never...''

The man sobbed wildly and repeated the same word over and over out loud. Roy remained motionless and stared at the sensitive man. His eyes didn't show despair or fear, but determination and strictness.

''Then why did you join the Army?''

The crying man stopped; his hands remained on his face.

''To gain honor sacrifices have to be made; this is the price every soldier must pay. If you can't come yourself with what they gave you, then abandon your duty.''

The crying man remained immobile on his bench and removed his hands to clear the passage of his voice.

''But I can't,'' he answered simply.

''And why?''

The sitting man stood up. It's then that Roy saw the height of the man. It was the same as his. He took a step back, but was pulled in by the stranger's hand, whose arm had the same reach as Roy's arm.

''Because you **can't**.''

His location changed; he was no longer in the room with the crying man. He was panicking, confused by his sudden change of environment. He was back in the red Ishval, somewhere else in the red Ishval.

He was about to say something, but was stopped by the familiar headache. He pressed his hand against the bleeding, hoping to diminish it.

Someone coughed in front of him. He looked up and saw a long forgotten monster. It was a Coughman. The monster was convulsing about a few meters away from the colonel as the clothes restraining its upper body ripped apart. Two arms emerged from the blue rags and immediately grabbed the disk around the monster's neck.

It snapped it in half with its bare hands and threw the pieces away.

With the disk removed, it grabbed the black gap from its mouth and tried to remove it.

As the monster tried to remove the last misplaced item, Roy took his leave and ran away from the monster. Even though his vision was blurring at times, the man managed to make a run for it.

He turned at a corner, only to be greeted by another free Coughman. This one, however, no longer had its gag and saw the colonel when he revealed himself. The colonel came backed up on his steps as the monster let out a wrathful cry and ran with its arms and legs to catch up with the colonel in a bestial manner.

No time to spare, the man tried to outrun the monster chasing him. However, his assailant was faster than him and almost had him when it jumped, but missed its target after Roy turned in an alley.

In the alley, he found an unlocked, metallic and heavy door. He grabbed on the door handle and pulled as hard as he could. The monster was advancing on him nine feet away .

''Come on... Come on!''

The door opened slightly and the Coughman jumped. The colonel passed through the crack, avoiding the monster by an inch, and closed the door behind, holding it. The monster charged at the heavy obstacle, but didn't even budge it thanks to the door's weight and the colonel. The noise of the monstrous gasps were followed by a hateful roar and the monster scooted away.

''Just... what is going on?'' He trembled as the words were coming out and he closed his eyes as he took a few deep breaths.

Soon after, the smell of ashes and noises of beating assaulted his senses. He forced his eyes to stay closed; he didn't want to see what was happening behind him.

The sound of a body being battered by a blunt weapon resonated through his hearing, mixed with soft but misplaced chuckles.

**''Bastard... Fucking disgrace of a human!''**

The voice was filled with a maddening rage and twisted joy as he continued to break apart his victim with his weapon. He gave a last strike on what sounded to be the hollow cracking noise of a skull and he stopped. Still blind to his surroundings, the colonel gulped down a hard, stressful knot in his throat.

Footsteps approached him while the violent stranger was hitting the floor with his bloody weapon.

**''Don't say you're chickening out, now. It's only orders, we all do it and we all deal with it. One. Way. Or. The. Other!''**

The last word snapped open Roy's eyes. He didn't get hit or face a monster; worse, he was standing in the red Ishval. He couldn't understand what was happening. He was thrown around like a worthless rag doll from one place to another. If his nerves were about to break, his body was reaching the point of total panic.

_''I must get out, I must get out, I must get out, I must get out, I must get out.''_

The words repeated over and over again in his head as he ran around in the red Ishval. The headache was bad and so was the bleeding, but this time he ignored the blood coming down from his face. He held his arms together and wandered in all the directions at his disposal.

He almost turned at a corner, but hid behind the wall when he heard the sound of struggles not too far away. He peeked at the gruesome scene.

On the street, a freed Coughman was trying to limp away from another monster. The monster was about double Roy's height. Its arms were longer than normal humanoid proportion and each of its fingers were armed by a five-inch bone claw. Its head violently twitched and only stopped when it was attacking the injured Coughman. Its skin was rather abnormal too; cracks were covering all the body as if the monster was going to blow up.

The big monster finally finished its victims. It stood there and swiftly grabbed the corpse, and threw it in Roy's direction. He avoided the body and ran; he heard the monster's growls growing stronger.

He took cover behind a wall.

The twitches from the monster's head cracked its neck bone and its footsteps stopped.

A moment of silence, another violent twitch.

The monster walking away as it growled savagely.

He turned his head.

It was enough to change the world once more.

The anxious man bit his lips, readying himself for what he was about to witness.

He was in a large square room; floor, ceiling and wall were covered with white and black plagued skin. The corners were each covered by a lump of flesh increasing and decreasing its size, as if they were breathing.

The colonel's anxiety didn't get better or worse. He was still in the same condition, but felt more secure than being in the red Ishval. Being surrounded by something warmer than ice was better, but it would be insane to say that it felt 'better'.

''Took you long enough.''

''Samantha?''

Behind him, Samantha stood on her own. Her physical appearance degraded since their last meeting: her clothes were ripped apart, only shreds and rags held together to cover the minimal of her skin. Soaked hair, clothes, blue lips and barely opened eyes could tell that the woman was in poor condition. She had bruises on her arms, her legs were scarred, blood dripped from her forehead.

Yet, she seemed indifferent. Absent of emotions.

Completely inhuman.

''Well Roy, you look like shit.'' She had a smirk forced from her lips. ''I guess... I guess, we are not so lucky after all. Are we?''

She closed her eyes and continued, seeing Roy wasn't going to add up.

''Where the fuck were you, Mustang?''

''What...?''

''Don't look at me like that, Mustang! You know what the hell I am taking about here. While you were... You disgusting pig! _Why?_ Why didn't you do it?''

Roy was momentarily confused. The words of Samantha weren't making any reasonable sense. Whatever was upsetting her, he couldn't find the right words to talk to the angry woman.

The female soldier pointed Roy with a cut finger and out of nowhere, she mentioned something the colonel couldn't understand at all.

''Why didn't you save Brigadier Maes Hughes, Colonel Roy Mustang?''

Unwillingly his eye widened.

''What did you just say?''

She closed her hand and she broke a smile toward the colonel.

''I knew it. You're just like all the high-ups, including Manuel after all. He was right, when he said you would make a perfect Fuhrer.''

''Swagger!'' He cut her short on her sentence.

''How the hell do you know all this?''

The woman wiped her head to remove the blood still dripping and removed it by giving a quick swipe with her wrist. The blood droplets fell on the white skin floor and began to spread like a disease with cracking noises and twisting sounds.

The colonel stepped back as the corruption continued forward, his eyes still staring at Samantha.

The woman stood on the corruption, unharmed and she smiled kindly. A warm and motherly smile fading in the darkness.

''Swagger! How do you know this? Swagger, tell me! Swagger! Swagger!''

The corruption turned the entire white room into a dark and 'living' inside. The skin was dark red, the lumps of flesh in the corners were black and their breathing pattern changed from a calm rhythm into a suffocating chaos. The room was partially lit by the alchemist's lantern, whose flame had ignited on its own.

Unavailable to know if Samantha was still in the room, the colonel was alerted by very familiar growls. From the darkness, the tall monster he saw in the Red Ishval was hunting him, twitching with excitement and insanity.

The man was ready to fire at the monster with his firearm, but the monster was already at his feet when he realized his surroundings.

The features on the monster's face were revealed in this brief closure. Its face was devoid of eyes and noses, like all other monsters, but it had one thing it had that frightened Roy.

It had three sets of small and almost invisible lips. One set of lips on both its cheeks and one set in the middle of its visage vertically positioned. The lips in the middle were covering long and crimson teeth. The man could see it when it opened its middle mouth.

The human managed to fire a bullet in the monster's mouth, but didn't kill it. Instead the left mouth opened and a sharp male scream came up as the monster backed away from the man.

The scream was piercing and unbearable. It was human-like, without any distortions to say it was the imitation of something else. As the scream went on and on, the colonel's heart beat began to race and he was overwhelmed by a nauseating feeling in his body. Even when he tried to fight against the feeling it became stronger as he continued to revolt against the weakness.

The monster emerged from the darkness, its mouth wide open and a raging howl yelling out from its middle mouth.

The man shot three times; the third time got its head. When it hit, the left mouth opened and began to laugh. The laugh of a madman. The monster backed away again and the colonel felt vertigo alongside the nausea.

He was back against a skin wall. If it wasn't for it, he would be unable to remain upright. He tried to ignore the scream and the laugh, but as much he tried the negative feelings weren't giving up on him.

For the third time, the monster appeared in front and he tried to shoot.

Nothing came out of the cannon.

Swiftly, the tall monster grabbed the man's neck and nailed him to the bloody wall. The sounds coming out of from the mouths distorted his focus and the strong grip from the tall monster strangled him as the alchemist struggled against the creature's hold.

His eyes could clearly see the monster's face twisting by the several emotions surging out from the mouths and the details from the cracks on its entire skin. Even as his eyes scrolled down the creature's appearance, one hand was holding on his assailant's grip and the other was reaching his coat's pocket.

The monster's grip became suddenly strong as his fingers found the fabric of one of his gloves. It knew it was going to die if it wasn't going to stop the man. However, why wasn't trying to kill him right now?

This monster was enjoying itself.

It was enjoying seeing the man squirming in its grasp.

The colonel fought to stay conscious; he had to focus on the only thing which could save his life.

His alchemy.

When the glove was in his hand, his senses blurred out and his brain stopped functioning. The lack of oxygen made him lose any sense at his disposal.

The monster mouths closed and the beast let loose its grip as it felt the lifeless body it was holding. It let go of the man and sniffed the comatose human it just took out cold. It pushed the blue human, no response.

It remained unmoved for a few seconds. Suddenly it jumped on the motionless body and the middle mouth opened.

An explosion scattered the monster's head around the red room and the remains of the body fell on a breathing and shaking colonel. The body was heavy; he couldn't move it away from him.

He didn't have the strength to do anything. He didn't have the will to encourage himself. He questioned why he didn't let the monster finish him off. He was so tired.

He closed his eyes and he never opened them back in the red skin room.

* * *

><p><strong>Special thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	14. The Reason for Violence

Chapter 14: The Reason for Violence

_A blue pen was gently put down on a wooden desk. The holder rubbed his hands against his face, a small smile covered by the palms. Another day of duty was over, only a million more to go after the night._

_His shift was over and by the clock's __hand__s it was close to eight o'clock. He still had time to take a drink somewhere before going home__;__ nobody was waiting for him there __anyway__ so what was the rush?_

_The man stretched his arms and got up from his chair with a neutral look on his face. He took his coat and __took__ his leave from the spacious office._

_He closed the door behind__ him__. As he was ready to lock the door, a voice rose not too far away from him._

_''Colonel.''_

_In the empty hall of the Central Headquarters, the colonel took a glance at the woman who spoke to him as he locked his office. Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye still had her usual emotionless expression which no one could truly know what she was thinking. He nodded toward the woman and faced her once he removed the key from the lock._

_''Over so soon, Lieutenant?'' __h__e mocked the untouchable woman._

_''Unlike you sir, I do not dwell on the job when someone is calling me__,__'' __s__he countered._

_Roy let out a tiny laugh from his right-hand's reply. She didn't have the tone to make light hearted jokes, but sarcastic replies were in her best vocal arsenal alongside with the handgun she always carried around._

_''So tell me, Lieutenant. Why were you waiting for me?''_

_Riza's shoulders suddenly tensed and she looked back over one of them. It wasn't natural for the woman to be so agitated __and certainly not the lieutenant__.__She was always calm, whatever was the situation._

_''I wanted to talk to you, sir__,__'' __s__he let out in a whisper__;__ his attention __drifted to __the woman.__''Since Maes Hughes' death, you changed. I understand why, but sir, your attitude toward us and the military __personnel__ start to make us believe you are going to lose it. You are so obsess__ed__ on this case that __it's__ no longer __safe__ for you, sir."_

_The woman's eyes didn't __turn__ away from the man's glare as she told __him__ what was on her chest. She knew Maes' death would change her superior, but never in this negative way. His main goal changed for a quest of revenge. A quest which could take a long time to __accomplish, wasting precious time for the colonel's dream. Someone had to tell him and she was the only one who __had__ the guts to say it face to face._

_The silence in the corridor was heavy and malicious, but neither the man __n__or the woman bowed before the atmosphere. In this battle of wits, the woman lost when her eyes look__ed__ down__,__ overruled by her colonel's glare._

_''Are you worrying that I might lose my mind in this case, Lieutenant?''_

_''Yes, sir. It is not only me who believe__s__ this__,__either__.''_

_''Then I order you to stop worrying about my mental condition, Lieutenant. It is not your right to say that I am right or wrong in all of this. I told you before and I'll tell you again tonight. 'I will avenge Maes Hughes' death.' Only I am allow__ed__ to stop __myself__ in this. You can either choose to not follow me in this or turn the blind eye on me, Lieutenant.''_

_The woman remained silent. The tension between them__ was strained__. After a moment, she raised her head and spoke._

_''I will follow, Colonel. Wh__er__ever you go.''_

* * *

><p>''Riza...''<p>

His eyes opened under a shining bulb, he closed them at the aggressive light. Unable to lift the weight of his body away from where he was lying down, he moved his head to his right.

At the edge of darkness and light, a particular silhouette stood there unmovable and silent.

''Samantha... Is that you?''

The silhouette didn't reply to the man's question. The lack of noises and responses from the woman made the weak man uneasy. At the distance between the two soldiers, Roy couldn't tell if it was indeed Samantha or a monster.

The shadow slowly walked in the darkness's edge, moving to be behind the man. Even if he tried to look behind him, the man was incapacitated to do anything requiring physical strength.

He felt a shake and he began to move. The person behind him was pushing what appeared to be stretcher and a rusty one at that. The squeaking noise coming out from the constant contact with the cheap metal and the wheels had a slow pace; whoever was pushing wasn't going very fast.

After a few squeaking noises from the stretcher, lights suddenly flashed on and rowdy chants and sounds erupted from nothing. Still facing at his right, a wall made out of frosted fences and decayed bars kept uncontrollable and enraged free Coughmans away from the colonel and his caretaker.

The man was surprised at first, but seeing the monsters weren't going to get him through the bars, he felt a little relief. Yet, he couldn't help but to feel in constant danger. The Coughmans were shaking the bars and fences as they tried to bite the metal to free themselves from the captivity placed upon them all.

In the chaotic roars and howls, the stretcher stopped moving. In his peripheral vision, the colonel saw the caretaker's back and his heart stopped beating and the world around him slowed down.

Facing her back to the man, a plain figure defeated all the man's expectations. Disregarding the fact he only saw her back, he knew who it was. It wasn't Samantha or any other woman, it was Riza. The same Riza he saw every day during duty, the same Riza he knew since he became an alchemist. Fresh clothes, same height, same hairdo, everything was pointing at Riza.

It was her, no doubt about it.

''Lieutenant! Lieutenant Hawkeye!''

The identical woman was deaf to the man's shouts; the monsters' roars and growls were stronger than the man's voice. She couldn't hear him, however he kept calling her. He tried to move, but the strength in his muscles was gone he couldn't do anything except try to shout over the monsters' roars.

''Lieutenant, why are you here? You're supposed to be in Central! Damn it Lieutenant, are you deaf?''

The monsters started to become more agitated; the bars shook furiously by the numerous hands shaking up the thick metal and ensued the beginning of fissures. The fingers of the Coughmans caught the wires of the fences and the pressure put on them began to bend them.

In all the confusion, a door opened and the stretcher was pulled in by someone else and not Riza. As he passed the door frame, he saw the woman's sides as she stood there silent and immobile like a statue.

''Riza! Get in! Get in immediately, that's an order!''

The woman didn't move an inch. At this close distance, she should be able to hear him, so why didn't she do anything? He kept screaming at the unmovable woman, until his head passed the door frame.

Like a miracle, he finally felt vitality in him and jumped out from the stretcher. He tried to run at the still-open door through which Riza's shadow could be made out from the high light of the corridor.

Time slowed down; in a fraction of a second all the barriers keeping the hostile Coughmans failed to keep the rage of the beasts. In this same amount of time, the door closed on itself, snapping the stretcher in two. If Roy hadn't gotten out, he would have lost his head.

In the momentum of his run, he crashed into the locked door. Something invaded Roy's chest; it was heavy and it momentarily made him lose his mind.

''RIZA! RIZA! RIZA!''

His yells were distorted by panic and fear. Not the fear of dying, but the fear of losing someone else. His hands banged on the solid door as if he could break it down like Armstrong. In the hurry to save her, he found the door handle and turned it right and left, but it wasn't budging.

He kept fighting the impenetrable shield as he could hear the fight going behind it. Coughmans' roars pierced through the thickness of the door alongside gunshots. Hollowed sounds of bodies hitting the floor followed by howls and roars. Until, his ear caught the worst thing he could hear in his entire life.

A single and long scream, cut short by a loud hit on the door.

He felt the resonance of the hit. It wasn't precise, it touched the whole door and its vibrations affected everything surrounding it. The sounds then ended; nothing came through from outside; it was dead silence.

The colonel looked at the door, shocked and trembling. Eyes and mouth gaping open, his knees slowly failed him and simultaneously hit the filthy ground. The weight in his chest grew as the seconds passed by in the natural flow of time. There was no use to hit the door anymore or to call for the only human behind the door.

As the feeling ravaged his body, he felt a semi-solid moist sensation under his knees. No need to be a genius to know what was the only thing coming out of a human body once savagely rammed in a solid wall and probably massacred by monsters.

In the soft silence, he kept the awful feeling destroying him and it didn't take long before he felt something cold rolling down from his eyes and his mouth curving down with his teeth clutching together.

Within the absolute silence, he let out a few weak gasps from his lips and suddenly the weight on his chest exploded in an agonizing scream. A feeling of powerlessness, weakness and solitude suddenly hit him as he continued to let out the cry. Maybe it was due to fatigue, maybe it's because he hadn't had a recovering sleep since he entered Silent Hill or it was because he kept all of this in him and it only took the death of another one to make him realize the alarming sickness growing in him?

He didn't care; all he did for a minute was let all of it go. It was pathetic and he felt like a weak man, but it was a relief to finally let go of all this.

All alone.

When the sadness emptied itself and he rubbed his eyes to erase any clues of this event. As his mind cleared off from the shock, he tried to open the door, but to no avail. He couldn't even take the dog tags of his dead right-hand. He had a hard time to believe that Riza died behind this door and he couldn't do anything to help her.

He took several deep breaths, stepped back and armed his hand with an alchemy glove. He looked at the door and was about to snap his fingers together until someone stopped him.

''If you do this, we will die.''

It was Samantha. He didn't need to check on her. Whatever she was, - a monster or still human, - wasn't his concern. He wanted to get to Riza's body out of the hell behind the metallic door.

''You're still alive, Samantha? I'm impressed you have the courage to talk to me, after you let me on my own against a three-mouthed freak. I should kill you for abandoning me.''

''Don't take that tone with me, Mustang. I'm just trying to help you.'' Her voice was marked by a pitch power. As if she was going to control the man's thoughts and actions by words. She was dreaming.

''Helping me?'' He chuckled bitterly. ''All you did was close the wounds so that they would open later. You guided me to the lowest level of Hell and you summoned a monster on my ass! How in the world does any of this help me?''

''And going in an infested area with monsters to take back some worthless dog tags is going to help you?''

A moment of silence passed between the man and the woman. She did have a point.

''I figured out so far that you know more about me than you should, Samantha. However, you should have figure out something from me.''

''And that is?''

He smiled slightly as he raised his arm to the door.

''That I'm stubborn like an ass.''

He snapped. Small and accurate explosions destroyed the door's supports and it fell over in the same room as Roy and Samantha. He was ready to kill the horde of monsters to retrieve the dog tags.

It never happened.

Instead, he saw a destroyed corridor. The bars and fences were either on the messy ground or barely hanging on their last foundations. A mangled body rested ungracefully in the mayhem.

His heart sank in. He didn't feel the heavy weight back in his chest, but he feared what he was about to see. As he approached the body slowly without tripping over something, he began to see its condition.

The bun in her hair was ripped off along with most of her hair in the same area. The strips of blond hair covered her face in a chaotic mess. The fresh and cleanest uniform he had seen in a long time turned into rags and scraps of the usual blue uniform stained in blood. The same red liquid bathed the body; the largest area came from the face. It was probably where the main point of impact was when Riza was thrown on the door.

Once in range, the colonel bent over and grabbed the woman's side and one of her arms. Gently and with his mind prepared for the horror hiding below the hair, he turned her over.

The face was unrecognizable. Riza's face was cracked, broken and savagely beaten up. With the blood covering her face and the fractured bones, there was no way to known that this woman was used to be Riza.

Roy didn't move and let himself stare at the body before taking the dog-tags and coming back to the room. His heart was torn apart by this sight. Her sacrifice saved his life, he should be happy to be alive, but knowing Riza's death felt wrong and the news he had to bring to the rest of the team would be the hardest part.

''Thank you, Lieutenant.'' He approached his hand and removed a stray bloody hair across the leftovers of her face. ''Your sacrifice will not go in vain.''

His eye caught a glimpse of the dog tags around Riza's neck. He grabbed the necklace, finding the chain had broken in half. He scrubbed away the blood off the tags and his face changed. The first sight he saw of the tags wasn't what he expected.

The first letter wasn't the 'R' of Riza. It started with a 'S'.

When he removed his finger, he could read.

_''Samantha Swaggers''_

It's then he turned around and found himself blank pointed by a gun. He instinctively froze in place.

''You saw a lot of movies Roy; you should have seen this one coming.''

It wasn't a female voice anymore, it was a male voice. A very familiar and shocking voice. His eyes manifested concern and confusion. He never talked to Samatha back in the room; he talked to this impossibly living man the whole time.

''The hero gets back stabbed by his friend by lying to him. However, now I think we are equal in this.''

The armed man wasn't a stranger. The voice had a calm and serious tone to it. He remembered the stranger who approached him after his fight against the two mutated Jaws. It was the same.

''Maes. It was you back in the amphitheatre.''

''And the same after you killed that huge metallic monster, plus while you snooped around in the prison.''

It wasn't Maes Hughes. No way was it him, yet he was standing, healthy and armed with a revolver aiming at Roy's head. Maes would have never tried to kill Roy. They were friends, best friends at that. His clothes were also too clean, his appearance too neat and his face demonstrated a glued smile empty of conviction. Upon the top of all this; Maes was dead.

''Just who do you think you are?'' The man resembling Maes gave out an ironic smile. ''Maes is dead. I saw his body. So, who are you?''

''I am Maes Hughes. Only this time, I know what I have to do and I know I am alive. Unlike a certain someone who hides behind his cats-paws to do his dirty work for 'the good of Amestris'.''

Roy wasn't convinced by the fake Maes's speech and the pretender saw through.

''You're stubborn as an ass, you know that, Roy? I saw all the things you did since you came in Silent Hill and... all the things you did since you came here.''

''What do you mean?''

''It's simple. This former woman right there helped me, because she is a good little military puppy. She knew about everything and knew it was going to come to this.''

''Bullshit. Maes would never use people.''

The imposter smiled and showed his teeth in a less reassuring manner.

''Well, well. Look who's talking. You talk like a saint, Roy, but you're as filthy as a sinner. Do you really think that her death was my fault? She was only following my orders-''

''Just like the Jaws.''

Maes stared disgustedly at his friend's face still in his half-sitting position.

''You controlled the Jaws, so I can presume you also controlled everything in this town including the other monsters.''

Maes's smile lost its cool rapidly when Roy finished telling the truth.

''It's just like you said Roy, sometimes dogs are better than man in war.''

''Then answer this question, 'Maes'.'' A moment of silence between the two men. ''If you are indeed Maes Hughes, why would you try to kill me? Let alone send me monsters. Maes would never do that to me. We were friends... I didn't do anything!''

The fake Maes lowered his weapon to Roy's body, his face gradually changed into anger. It's then, Roy heard the fake Maes's saying:

''That's exactly my point.''

When the sentence ended, the alchemist felt nothing and his body fell in the woman's blood.

* * *

><p><strong>Special thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	15. The Angel Who Never Reached the Sky

Chapter 15: The Angel Who Never Reached the Sky

**Maes Hughes**

**1934-1965**

**Killed during duty**

''So he discovered something in the documents. It was so important that it could break the whole army._**It could have been my only chance. **_''

He felt awful, as if someone had beaten him up with a baseball bat or a steel pipe. His mouth was dry and he felt an empty space in his stomach. When he tried to move his arms, something kept them in place.

''One thing is for sure, I'll not let this case slip by._** I will have my revenge.**_''

The voice crashed in his skull and he let the pain of this anger affect him. Who was talking to him? The sentences felt familiar.

''Becoming the Fuhrer and avenging Maes' death are my priorities. Nobody will say otherwise. _**Or they will die.**_''

The loud voice barged through him. The strong tone came from the same static voice, but instead of being just mere words, they were triggered bullets piercing through his skull at the lowest speed it could reach.

The mere words were spoken through his mouth since they began to echo through his head, but the last loud sentences weren't his voice. The painful words weren't his.

Yet, something felt familiar. A feeling of unwanted thoughts and hidden facades broke under anxiety and fatigue. The alchemist was, both physically and mentally, at the end of the rope.

''It's... mine.'' The gasps lifted out of his lips. In the darkness, a weak blow of wind passed by. ''I get it...''

He barely chuckled at his own reasoning.

''Maes... I get it now.''

Another wind blew, but this time it came from under his feet. He weakly smiled as he felt the restrains releasing their grasps on the man.

''Then, I guess... we have to finish this. I can't let you go. But I... I have to let you go.''

He grabbed the handles of the chair and lifted himself up with his knees barely holding his weight. A partial part of the darkness started to remove itself from the area it engulfed to be replaced by flaming beacons slowly going down from clinking and rusty chains.

''Vengeance can't be ignored... I can't let the bastard get away with it. But I can let you go.''

He raised his head to the light and witnessed the descent of the many Fleshy Chandeliers. They stopped at different heights; the distant ones looked like stars and the closest were bright as a strong lantern.

The alchemist found himself on a fence, circular platform suspended by bloody, metallic ropes. It was also wet, but not enough to threaten to spill the alchemist off the platform.

A strong gust suddenly blew from the depths of the darkness. The fury of the wind was powerful enough to blow away the chair and forced the alchemist to shield his face from the dust. The chair fell into the shadows below and when it was gone, the horror hidden in the shadows revealed itself.

A gigantic arm surfaced from the dark sea and another one soon followed. The hands of both arms were covered in a rusty liquid and the skin was unhealthy in all the ways of the word. It was grey and untreated wounds dripped bloody ooze. The nails were torn off and the palms each had a wound as if something had dug through the flesh.

Roy stepped back at the imposing limbs closing and opening their fingers, searching for something to grab on. As quickly they appeared, the hands grabbed on the platform's ropes, holding on desperately. It was then that the arms lifted the remainder of whatever was below the darkness.

By the strength of the two sickly limbs, a body emerged from the same cursed sea. The uniform had a resemblance with the same uniform Maes had worn the night he died. It was wearing titanic size of the military's uniform, covering the chest of the monster. An unquestionable gaping wound separated the sides of the chest; the revealed ribcage was protecting nothing but air.

The head was, however, the only thing which broke the illusion of Maes to the alchemist. The jaws were stitched by large strings and half of the head was missing, replaced by broke pieces of glass. Through each pieces of glass, a round red light moved independently in its limited zone. The nose-holes dripped a black ooze which slid to the stitched mouth; giving the impression the monster was enraged.

The monster stopped its climbing, watching Roy from a higher point of view as the black blood rained down below it. Its red eyes stared down at the weak man, forming a deformed, red glowing eye.

It's the Red-Eyed Monster. The one in his dreams and the one who killed Riza. But the name of the monster wasn't Red-Eyed, it was Maes Hughes. The Maes Hughes created by him, not his friend, not the real Maes.

It was fake.

''I have to let go of you Maes,'' he almost whispered to the monster above him.

A hollow growl soon followed. It came from above, the monster freeing one of its hands, widening the fingers and elevating its long and thin arm.

The alchemist quickly shoved his hand in his pocket and wore a used alchemy glove. His fingers snapped and an explosion struck the elbow's joint of the extended arm. A loud sound of a snap rang through the room along with the monster's muffled howl.

In the agony brought by his assailant, the monster's second hand let go. The alchemist just had the bare time to avoid the monster's fall on the platform. When it hit, the metallic suspended floor barely held in the impact, the chain beginning to fissure. There was too much weight on it.

Roy immediately snapped twice. The explosions blew at the monster's partial glass head. Its hand lost its grasp and the balance of the platform was back to normal.

The alchemist took a few deep breaths. This monster was strong and had an additional height advantage, but couldn't rival the alchemy's flames. He glanced at the platform's edge. From the darkness, a hand jumped out and grabbed the nearest chain. It made him jump so quickly that he thought his heart was going to miss a beat.

The arm was deeply injured, but it was still strong enough to get the monster out of the darkness by its own.

_''You got to be kidding me...''_ his thoughts screamed as the monster climbed the chains.

He was ready to use his alchemy again, by was interrupted by the black ooze falling from the monster's barely existent chin. It fell near him and Roy saw what could had been the consequences. The black ooze melted through the platform, leaving only a trace of smoke.

_''This monster's blood is acid?''_

The monster reached a higher height than before and its long arm reached a nearby fleshy chandelier. The mass of flesh jerked around, making a strange goosing. Without the means to do anything, the Fake Maes began to slowly crush the Fleshy Lantern. The living thing wheezed a shrieking piercing scream as red blood began to taint the hand of the Fake Maes.

The shriek was growing by the micro-seconds and it shook Roy out of his numb trance. The same feeling he felt when he lost Samantha came back to haunt him, fuelling him with panic and rage.

''Let her go!'' His fingers snapped without his own will.

The explosion hit the glass face of the fake Maes. It's grasp on the lump of flesh was broken and its body fell back into the darkness before the dark clouds submerged the monstrosity.

The second it fell in the black clouds, the monster jumped out of them almost in desperation. Its fingers grabbed to the fenced-platform and raised just enough for the head to rest on the floating floor.

''Just die!'' The alchemist snapped and another explosion hit the monster.

It didn't flinch or show pain. Instead, it broke the strings attached to its lips unleashing the giant's mouth.

Freed from its restraints, the fake Maes screamed in a twisted and howled tone; the sound coming out of the monster was... much too reminiscent of Maes Hughes. It was a scream of desperation and loss. The same one when a child lost his mother, the same cry of someone's last moment when he knows it's over.

He stood there. Numb, mouth slightly opened and eyes wide open.

Only when a sting of pain raced from his hand, he woke up. His gloved hand was covered by the monster's acidic blood. As he quickly removed it before he suffered more, he saw the monster's jaw opening, screaming at the top of its lungs while black acidic spit splattered aimlessly on the platform.

He threw off the fabric and when he looked back at the monster, he was slammed on the floor, almost knocked out by the impact.

His vision focused in and out. He could see the blurry, red eyes staring through him. He tried to free himself, but when his free hand touched the monster's bare skin he sworn his hand was burning.

He couldn't get himself out of the monster's grasp, he couldn't use alchemy to save his life; he was short on solutions.

He saw the unfocused head approaching him; he could feel its cold breath getting closer and closer.

His eyes scanned at his other hand, the revolver. The weapon might be his only saviour.

With the sluggish hold he had on the firearm and his will to live, he pointed the weapon at the monster's head.

Everything that followed proceeded in silence. Might be because of fatigue or the 'bang' of the revolver turned too loud to the alchemist's ears.

The bullet didn't hit any flesh from the monster; it hit and went through the thing's glassed-face. In a final explosion, the shards all broke and flew away from fake Maes' visage. The broken pieces shined like little lights, revealing the real face of the monster.

There was none.

Below the glass and the red eyes, there was nothing but a big empty space.

Without its 'face', the monster became like any living being without its head. The corpse fell into the darkness with its grasp still stuck on the platform and its weight, the suspended floor gave up.

The last image he saw before falling into the dark sea with the monster was the sky. Somehow, before he lost all contact with the world, he saw a clear, orange sky.

And he smiled right before he was submerged into darkness.

* * *

><p><strong>Special thanks to WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading.<strong>


	16. Coming Back

Chapter 16: Coming Back

The foggy air veiled the few small birds chirping on the almost naked trees. The wind blew harder than in the previous weeks, winter was coming very soon.

A loud sound frightened the winged critters, and they flew away in a single second. A figure reached out a handkerchief in his uniform's pocket and blew his noise in a ruthless manner.

''Already got a cold, princess?'' laughed an armed man about three feet in front of the sick man.

''Oh shut up!'' cursed the sick man after putting away the soft tissue. ''Why did the Lieutenant send us in the middle of a foggy, haunted forest?''

As they picked up the pace, his companion laughed at the end of his sentence.

''What the hell are you talking about? Are you chickening out?''

''No, I'm not! I heard from the other privates that this forest was a war zone between the fleeing Ishvalans and the Army. Supposedly, if you shouted, you can see a ghost of either side coming toward you.''

The skeptical companion stopped on dead tracks and shouted a random phrase aimlessly. His sick comrade let out a small cry of fear by the sudden surprise, followed by his friend's laughs.

''See? No ghost. Now, let's get going before you die of fright.''

''Daniel...''

The skeptical man turned his head back to his comrade. The sick man's face was white and he was pointing out right behind the named Daniel. The man turned and his eyes opened wide.

Standing next to a tree, a man in the Army's uniform was barely holding on the tree's bark. His face was dirty and blood was running down from the stranger's face. His black hair was soaked, a mockery of sanitary. The uniform was in a poor condition; dirt, mud and blood tainted the dark blue fabric. His arm and legs had severe wounds and by how the movement of the limbs weren't natural, they were possibly broken.

The mess of a man was staring through the souls of the two stunned men. His eyes were empty of life, half-closed by what appeared to be a great fatigue from a long and tiring fight.

''AAAAAAHHH! A GHOST!''

The sick man was pointing at the presumed ghost before them and his gun's canon was quickly caught by the skeptic's hand.

''Hey, are you crazy or something?'' the comrade yelled to the sick man. ''He's not a ghost!''

He tossed the rifle away from the injured man's direction and ran to the side of the wounded soldier. Just in time at that, the injured soldier was about to fall head first on the muddy ground, if it wasn't for the presumed Daniel.

''Hey, can you hear me? Say something! Who did this to you?'' Daniel said as he gently shook the injured man to keep him awake.

The injured man said nothing; he only stared more into the man's eyes, fighting the fatigue.

''Kain, help me! We need to take him to HQ, now!''

The two men cooperated and carried the injured soldier toward their base; however it was the last thing the Colonel remembered before he fell unconscious.

* * *

><p>It was late at night; Central's military base was almost devoid of life. The guards walking in a steady pace through the corridors and outside were the only signs of activity in the stone building's area.<p>

Even at that time, some daily souls were awake, completing a report at the last minute or by mistake slept on their desk after a hard day of work. In one of the bureaus, Riza Hawkeye was finishing a report which was meant to be Roy Mustang's work.

She wasn't the sort of person to sit on a chair for too long without doing something that didn't involve physical exercise, however this habit got worse when she was under pressure.

And she was.

She had working in the bureau for three days now, without a single word about her colonel. She had to do his all of his work until they found out where he was or when they were going to find him.

She didn't want to think about the possibility that Roy was dead. There was no way he could be dead. She still remembered the first day he didn't come to work.

She was the one to make the calls at various places where he could have been, but none of them gave her a useful clue of his whereabouts. She looked around town with Jean and Havoc looking for Roy. No positive feedback.

The second day, the twenty-four hours of inactivity from Roy got the attention of the higher ups. It was only then they sent letters to outside Army's camps the man's disappearance and on the lookout.

Usually, they wouldn't do it for a regular private, but Roy was an important figure to Central's population. If he was killed or captured, they had to find the culprits and execute them to avoid frightening people. The war of Ishval was triggered by the death of a red-eyed girl from an Amestrian soldier's gun. If the death of one measly girl could make a war, what would it be for a man who the people loved?

She stopped writing, put down the pen, grabbed a glass of water and drank it in one gulp.

''Get a hold of yourself, Hawkeye. Roy isn't dead,'' she told to herself as she stroked the bridge of nose to calm down.

Riza wasn't in the best mood; she was frustrated, angry and stressed because of all the circumstances falling upon her. They were making her do things she would never do as if they were already beginng to train her to replace Roy. They hadn't even found him yet and already they believed he was dead.

It was wearing down on her and she wasn't looking forward to all this. She was his bodyguard, not his protégé. If he was going to die, she would find the one who did it and kill him without a single sign of remorse. Not taking his place as a colonel, she would prefer a bullet to the head than all of this.

_Ring. Ring._

The phone rang. Riza made a remark concerning who would call her at this time of the night and answered the phone.

''Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye speaking,'' she answered indifferently.

_''Miss __Hawkeye__. I should inform you to go immediately to Central Hospital, right now.''_

Right after the voice's end, she felt her guts twisting on themselves, into a knot. It wasn't painful, just very unpleasant. The hoarse voice was definitely male, but she couldn't figure out who it was. It sounded like the man who smoke one too many cigarettes.

''Who are-''

The link interrupted there. Her instincts were telling her to go to the hospital. It sounded all too fishy, but what was holding her? It wasn't as if she were bound to the headquarters like a restless spirit.

She got up and reached for her coat, turned down the light and made her way to Central Hospital.

* * *

><p>The streets were quiet, almost as quiet as the headquarters. The roaming of her car's engine was the only dominant sound in the dark streets of Central. Getting closer to the hospital, Riza felt uneasy.<p>

Who was this mysterious man on the phone?

Why was she going to the hospital, exactly?

To find Roy or someone to give her information about her Colonel's whereabouts?

Nothing could tell, but there was one thing she was sure of.

Somewhere, deep inside her, she knew what she going to find out in the hospital was going to be bad. Calling it instinct would be simpler to explain than some sixth feminine-sense.

After what seemed to be an eternity, she arrived at Central's Hospital. The night staff was, obviously, smaller than the one of day. When she parked her car near the entrance, Riza felt the uneasy feeling grown enough to give her goosebumps.

_''Here we go.''_

She stepped out of her vehicle and entered the medical building.

When she stepped in, she was greeted by a smiling nurse standing behind the glass-paned counter.

''Good evening, madam. Can I help with something?''

She didn't know what to say to the young nurse. She couldn't say: _''Yes, I was told by a stranger on my phone at work to come here. Can you please tell me what it __is __about?''_ It would put her and the nurse in the most awkward of positions. With her natural calm, she decided to play it along.

''Yes, I would like to see a doctor.''

The nurse's eye suddenly lifted up. Even through the glass, Riza immediately felt the anxiety of the young woman. She gently bit her lower lip and looked down with a pasted smile.

''I'm sorry, madam. All of our doctors are... occupied at the moment.'' She tried to cover up with a high-pitched voice.

Riza heard the nurse's change of tone. She was telling the truth, but she was definitely covering up something she had to keep secret.

''All of Central's Main Hospital doctors are unavailable? I find it hard to believe,'' she questioned coldly.

''Well, um...''

Before she could answer, the entrance's door suddenly clashed on the wall and a middle-aged soldier hurried in.

''Nurse, I came as quickly as possi... Lieutenant Hawkeye?''

Riza didn't recognize the man at all, but he seemed to know her. Probably, a rookie who saw her as a model or some sort. His voice didn't match the one who called here.

''Who are you?'' she asked to the man with a cold, defensive tone.

Before he could say anything, the nurse came out of her translucent cocoon and swiftly cut into the stillborn conversation.

''I'll have to cut the conversation, sir and ma'am.'' She walked between the two, creating a wall with her own person. ''We don't have much time, please follow me.''

The concerned soldier followed the woman and Riza followed on his quick heels. She wasn't the curious type, but she knew it wasn't a simple coincidence that someone called her to go in a specific place and she got herself into a mess. Maybe the soldier would give her intel of what's going on.

''Private, tell me what's going on,'' she ordered while they passed through a large door frame pushed by the nurse.

''I have been called by a doctor of this hospital; they told me they needed my assistance on a dying patient.''

''Who is it?'' Her breaths started to become shorter by the quick pace.

''They can't tell. All they told me is that he's a soldier and an alchemist.''

Her heart sunk when he gave away the details. A soldier and an alchemist? Only one person came to her mind and she suddenly felt this feeling of weakness in her chest. It could be a big coincidence, but again the voice of the stranger echoed into her mind as the answer for her suddenly fragile emotion.

_''Miss __Hawkeye__. I should inform you to go immediately to __Central__ Hospital, right now.''_

''Did they know what happened to him?''

They passed through another set of doors, this one had a huge sign near them informing;

_''Personnel__ Only''_

''Not sure, but given the description he's in a very, very bad shape. He was found in a nearby forest in the north where many Ishvalans' activities were reported.''

At the end of the soldier's sentence, Riza heard a muffled sound. The duration was the sound was three to four seconds long and a brief pause before repeating the pattern. As they continued, the sound was getting stronger and this was when Riza understood what it was.

Screams.

The patient was screaming so loudly that his voice was passing through walls. Riza felt a chill passing through her spine. She heard many different ways to express pain, through cries, screams and howls of rage, but never like this. The screams of the patient had only pain in it. A suffocating and horrible pain.

At a certain distance, the nurse stopped in her tracks, but the soldier kept going. When Riza was about to follow him, the nurse put her hand in front of the lieutenant, signalling her to stop and she did so.

''I'm sorry, ma'am, but this is as far as I can permit you to go.'' The nurse's tone was suddenly and surprisingly strong.

The nurse almost did a hundred eighty degree of personality. From weak and insecure to firm and strong, the nurse changed as her training showed her.

Riza didn't replied back to the nurse's order, she didn't have the right to take her matters into her own hand. She simply nodded to the nurse and was about to walk away with the medical lady at her side.

That's until...

Another wave of scream urged out of the patient's mouth and this time a name came out.

_Her _name.

She halted. Her heart buzzed by something she never felt before and she felt an urge of emotion climbing to her throat. Her head felt light with sudden sickness.

She wanted to run backward, to see her colonel and to say to him that she was here, that everything will be okay. However, she knew it would only obstruct the doctors' work and could kill Roy.

Without saying a word, she kept her mouth shut, ignored the screams of her dying superior and sluggishly walked to the entrance with the help of the nurse.

As she walked further away from Roy, her mind felt a terrible guilt invading her. After five days of absence, she found him and she was walking away from him. She was leaving him to more useful hands than hers. Each step was a struggle to not run toward him, to lose control over her reasoning, but each step was a challenge. She wanted to be punished for the sin she was committing, but she couldn't. She couldn't do anything at the moment. The only thing she could do was wait. Wait for her dying Colonel to get better.

_''I'm sorry, Colonel... I can't do anything for you now.'' _

* * *

><p>For a whole week, Riza visited Roy at the hospital. She was the first one to see him the next day after she had received the stranger's call.<p>

It was only the next day that she found out that the soldier she had spoken to was an alchemist specialized in medical and healing factors. If the hospital called for the alchemist, it meant for an important emergency. It's when she finally saw her Colonel that she found little redemption after leaving him last night.

His physical condition was mediocre. He was a shadow of who he really was and this shadow was unpleasant to look at. Pale skin, short and painful breaths, beads of sweat were sliding down his forehead. The doctors told her that he had a fever and possibly delusional dreams as he sometimes moved his lips, but no works came out.

The doctor promised her that Roy would be physically fine in a week and all of this was thanks to the alchemy of the soldier from last night. Without him, Roy would have bled out to death.

''Thank you, Doctor. If you may?''

The man in the white coat only nodded and said before he walked away to the woman that if anything happened, she just had to signal a nearby nurse.

''Is...''

The lieutenant swiftly turned her head back to the occupied bed. By some sort of miracle or big coincidence, the man in the bed slightly opened his eyes, facing toward the woman at his side.

''Is he... gone?''

She kept her excitement for herself. The last thing Roy needed was a headache.

''He is, sir.''

His eyes were fully opened, as if only her presence healed him of all pain. She came closer, not wanted to miss what he could tell.

''Great. I had... my dose of doctors... for today.''

''Sir, do you...?''

He nudged his head toward the woman. His eyes were clearly tired, but he wanted to stay awake. Just to see if he wasn't in a lucid nightmare or if he was in reality.

''It's good... to be back...''

''The team and I share the same sentiments for you too, sir.''

There was a moment of silence. As if both Riza and Roy were understanding the situation on their different sides. Riza seeing back a man supposedly dead, coming back after nearly a week and Roy realizing he was back to reality.

''Riza... can I ask you... to hear me out... just...''

''Tell me, sir,'' she cut him off. She didn't want him to lose too much strength on simply talking.

He painfully turned his head back so his face was parallel to the ceiling. He was silent for a moment, looking for the right repertoire of words to say what he had to say.

''I saw Maes...''

If the alchemist would have said this in a normal condition to her, she would never have taken it seriously and would probably have told to Roy that Maes was dead. However, this time, she could let it slip. He was either drugged too much to think clearly or wanted to be in contact with someone.

''Maes, sir?'' she played along.

''Yeah. We... we got into a fight... but when we found the problem... it was nothing in the end.'' She chuckled at the end. ''We... laughed for a while... and then...''

He winced, his hand holding his side. Riza was going to help, but the pain faded away quicker than both thought.

''I... escaped.''

''Glad to hear it, sir. Now, I must request that you rest. Those last days must have been rough for you.''

He smiled at her. She had no idea how much he was relieved to be back in Central.

''Mmm... I had quite... rough days...'' He ended with a quiet sigh.

* * *

><p>Nobody knew what truly happened to Roy these five days.<p>

The reports concluded that the man was kidnapped by Ishvalans and tortured there for the same amount of time he went missing. Confirming the reports of Ishvalans activities in the northern forest.

The colonel promised that he didn't divulge any information to the enemies. Only his sworn word was enough to make most believe him and most generals trusted him.

Through almost two weeks, he had to lie. It was by only pure coincidence, two days after he was out of the hospital, that a group of rebel Ishvalans were found in the northern forest in a small house where they had an interrogation room and cells. The generals asked the colonel if he wanted to go there to confirm the location.

He quietly turned them down. No questions were asked and they left him to his duty after that.

The first days coming back to work were awkward. Not only did his team not know how to greet him, but the shrimp and his brother were there only after an hour since he just sat on his chair.

To believe he thought one of the hellish monsters was the younger of the two, Alphonse, was idiotic. Even if he was in a, say, more imposing suit of armor, he would never hurt someone for no good reason.

Quicker than most would have believed, Roy came back to his usual self rather fast. The horrors he witnessed in Silent Hill were only memories, but memories that weren't as horrible as he felt before.

Of course, he didn't see it with a good eye and he would always remember the minutes he passed in that hell. Whether he had gone mad or not was not important. What was important was that he was back in Central with the good and the bad.

What he had to concentrate on was what the real issue was and not making the problem up. He was still resolved to avenge Maes's death and to become the Führer. These were his duties and this was what he had to concentrate on.

His goals would be accomplished and his dreams would be fulfilled.

* * *

><p><strong>That's it! I finished it! Thank the sweet Lord of Science and Bears that I finished this fanfiction!<strong>

**If I had to tell you that this chapter went through 6 modifications, you would have laughed. HARD.**

**For fun too, please leave your thoughts on the story by review. I wanna to know what were your thoughts on the story and your theories for the monsters, events, characters, bosses. Anything! I don't want to sound too arrogant, but I'm curious of what you guys thoughts on it were.**

**On this note, I want to thank from the bottom of my heart WargishBoromirFan for the beta-reading of all the chapters and endurance of the mistakes I wrote down for the last sixteen chapters. And a big thanks to all the people who read this fan fiction and enjoyed the story.**

**Thank you again,**

**Phanax Leminer**


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